John McCain

We have to fight. We have to fight against propaganda and crackpot conspiracy theories. We have to fight isolationism, protectionism, and nativism. We have to defeat those who would worsen our divisions. We have to remind our sons and daughters that we became the most powerful nation on Earth by tearing down walls, not building them.

In prison, I fell in love with my country. I had loved her before then, but like most young people, my affection was little more than a simple appreciation for the comforts and privileges most Americans enjoyed and took for granted. It wasn’t until I had lost America for a time that I realized how much I loved her.

The first role of government is to help people who are in crisis or need. That’s why we have government.

I have watched men suffer the anguish of imprisonment, defy appalling human cruelty… break for a moment, then recover inhuman strength to defy their enemies once more.

It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy.

America didn’t invent human rights. Those rights are common to all people: nations, cultures, and religions cannot choose to simply opt out of them.

I’ve never tried to impose pressure on the authority of the government through my business achievements. I cannot tell you what the others were doing.

I am not so much alarmed at the excessive liberty which reigns… as at the inadequate securities which one finds there against tyranny.

Chechnya is part and parcel of the Russian Federation.

In a Canadian-style insurance system, the costs are distributed in the same way that taxes are. If the tax system is progressive…then the wealthy will also pay more of the costs of health care.

We’re doing better economically just about than at any time. We’re doing better on unemployment maybe than ever. You know, I mean, if you look at the unemployment numbers, you’ve heard me say it. And we’re doing better on unemployment than just about ever.

In the US, first of all, the electoral system has been almost totally shredded. For a long time it’s been pretty much run by private concentrated spending but now it’s over the top. Elections increasingly over the years have been [public relations] extravaganzas.

We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars. All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.

April Thesis, S and R the most radical things Lenin ever wrote, almost anarchist. My view is that it was basically opportunism. I don’t think he believes a word of it. It seems to me that he was trying to associate himself, become the leader of the revolutionary popular forces.

{on Mexico] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

I propose getting rid of conventional armaments and replacing them with reasonably priced hydrogen bombs that will be distributed equally throughout the world.

As we know, the goal of every struggle is victory. But if the proletariat is to achieve victory, all the workers, irrespective of nationality , must be united. Clearly, the demolition of national barriers and close unity between the Russian, Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Jewish and other proletarians is a necessary condition for the victory of the proletariat of all Russia.

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal.

I prefer to be in the grave in Colombia than in a jail cell in the United States.

We don’t pass by on the other side.

No matter how you cut it, this real debate on personal accounts is about the legitimacy of Social Security; it’s not about the solvency of Social Security.