Top 80 Barney Frank Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Conservatives believe that from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.”

— Barney Frank

2. “Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight.”

— Barney Frank

3. “The Moral Majority supports legislators who oppose abortions but also oppose child nutrition and day care. From their perspective, life begins at conception and ends at birth.”

— Barney Frank

4. “Take free speech: most of the tough cases on free speech involve very unpleasant people saying very obnoxious things.”

— Barney Frank

5. “In a free society a large degree of human activity is none of the government’s business. We should make criminal what’s going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.”

— Barney Frank

6. “Ronald Reagan believes in the free market like some people believe in unicorns.”

— Barney Frank

7. “The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.”

— Barney Frank

8. “Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.”

— Barney Frank

9. “The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.”

— Barney Frank

10. “These two entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

— Barney Frank

11. “The best antidote to prejudice is reality.”

— Barney Frank

12. “I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.”

— Barney Frank

13. “I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew. I’ve never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.”

— Barney Frank

14. “Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can’t do anything because they’re tied up in knots.”

— Barney Frank

15. “People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.”

— Barney Frank

16. “I smoke a cigar or two a day. I did have a brownie once. It made me sleepy.”

— Barney Frank

17. “I was still closeted, but from the day I decided to run for office, knowing that I was gay, I decided that I would, of course, still be closeted but that I would work very hard for gay rights. It would be totally dishonorable, being gay, not to do that. So I had that as kind of a secondary agenda.”

— Barney Frank

18. “Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.”

— Barney Frank

19. “Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.”

— Barney Frank

20. “If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don’t hold it back for retaliatory purposes.”

— Barney Frank

21. “I believe it is a good thing to get rid of Gaddafi. But does America have to do everything?”

— Barney Frank

22. “Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.”

— Barney Frank

23. “Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.”

— Barney Frank

24. “We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.”

— Barney Frank

25. “This bill is the legislative equivalent of crack. It yields a short-term high but does long-term damage to the system and it’s expensive to boot.”

— Barney Frank

26. “And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.”

— Barney Frank

27. “I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.”

— Barney Frank

28. “Nothing in the world is as mobile as capital. It can move anywhere in the world instantaneously.”

— Barney Frank

29. “Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.”

— Barney Frank

30. “I will tell you, I’m a lousy cook, but I think I’m a pretty good judge of a good meal.”

— Barney Frank

31. “A leader can’t move a country that’s not ready. You can’t make the waves, but when you see them coming, you can help direct them.”

— Barney Frank

32. “What’s troubling is that the Republicans to defend Mr. DeLay are weakening the ethics process.”

— Barney Frank

33. “The public is ready now for a safety net for the middle class, something not just for the poor, but for everyone who will need help, from time to time, in order to own a home, educate their kids, keep themselves healthy or have something to retire on.”

— Barney Frank

34. “I have this fear that one day there’s going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 Senators there and they’ll all die because they won’t have the 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.”

— Barney Frank

35. “I do not believe that the federal government should treat adults who choose to smoke marijuana as criminals.”

— Barney Frank

36. “They appear to have become so attached to their outrage that they are even more outraged that they won’t be able to be outraged anymore.”

— Barney Frank

37. “Disruption never helps your cause. It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.”

— Barney Frank

38. “There was a degree of interventionism in American foreign policy, the notion that we must be the superpower and we have to intervene everywhere, that I think makes no sense.”

— Barney Frank

39. “Going before an audience of people who expect you to be funny is tough. Going before an audience that expect you to be boring, and then being a little funny, is much easier. I prefer easier.”

— Barney Frank

40. “Most people who are activists and are concerned about issues get their information from sources which reinforce their opinions and give them the facts that they want to hear.”

— Barney Frank

41. “There were a lot of Romneys. There was the Romney who was ; going to be better on gay rights than Ted Kennedy; now there’s the Romney who checks with Rick Santorum on that issue.”

— Barney Frank

42. “The best humor is offered up by the stupidity of your opponents.”

— Barney Frank

43. “Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.”

— Barney Frank

44. “They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who’s getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn’t know how to promote homosexuality.”

— Barney Frank

45. “I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people’s rights to get married, join the Army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

— Barney Frank

46. “But here too it should be noted that the President’s approach was to first ask the repressive and brutal Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden to us, and only after that government refused to do that did we invade.”

— Barney Frank

47. “But on those occasions when I do strongly disagree with the Democrats and I don’t say anything, I think I forfeit my right to have people pay attention to me when I say the things that I don’t like about what Republicans are saying.”

— Barney Frank

48. “We don’t get ourselves dry cleaned.”

— Barney Frank

49. “In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.”

— Barney Frank

50. “But the absence of bad motives in no way alleviates the bad effects.”

— Barney Frank