John McCain

Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.

I don’t mind a good fight. For reasons known only to God, I’ve had quite a few tough ones in my life. But I learned an important lesson along the way: In the end, it matters less that you can fight. What you fight for is the real test.

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.

But we’re at a place in our political history when passing legislation through the House with bipartisan support is considered by some folks a greater evil than the problem it’s intended to solve.

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.

If you want to preserve – I’m very serious now – if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain’t so.

There is no such source of error as the pursuit of truth.

To tell the truth is very difficult, and young people are rarely capable of it.

The honest truth is that every day was new, every day was a challenge, every day was starting from a fresh place, and as time went on, over the course of about two years, things became better and better. But I don’t think that there was for me anything like, ‘Ah, this is taking too long’, because ‘long’ didn’t exist. So I see it as a blessing. I have to laugh. I mean there’s no other way to look at it.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure truth.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, Go away, I’m looking for the truth, and so it goes away. Puzzling.

When in doubt tell the truth.

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives by makebelieve.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are economical in its use.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.