George H. W. Bush

History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.

America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

Gulf Lesson One is the value of airpower.

No, I’m not anguished and tormented.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They’ll tell you.

It’s a very good question, very direct, and I’m not going to answer it.

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

I’m not a dictator who writes things to tell people what to do.

I have a great relationship with the Mexican people.

It is because Russia is seen as a threat, because Russia is seen as becoming a competitor. I believe this approach is mistaken.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union made the state’s role absolute. In the long run, this made the Soviet economy totally uncompetitive. This lesson cost us dearly. I am sure nobody wants to see it repeated.

It’s not a very big thing to say, ‘I made a mistake’ on the war, and typical of Hillary Clinton that she can’t.

Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.

Have not fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany claimed that they have attained similar results [as in U.S.S.R.]? Have not both been achieved at the price of privation and personal liberty sacrificed for the good of the state?

Cromwell is just as much of a bloody dictator as was Stalin.

I paid too heavy a price for perestroika.

I would not use the term “totalitarian” to refer to the American system of “brainwashing under freedom.” It is, nevertheless, a remarkably effective system, a fact that is rarely recognized, analyzed or understood.

The only reason I don’t use the word class is that the terminology of political discourse is so debased it’s hard to find any words at all. That’s part of the point — to make it impossible to talk.

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

Colorless green ideas sleep furiously