Top 35 Bill Richardson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “We cannot accomplish all that we need to do without working together.”

— Bill Richardson

Featured in: Collaboration Quotes, Tuesday Work Quotes

2. “Recognizing and preventing men’s health problems is not just a man’s issue. Because of its impact on wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters, men’s health is truly a family issue.”

— Bill Richardson

3. “I don’t have all the answers. I need your help, your guidance, and your leadership to tackle the challenges before us.”

— Bill Richardson

4. “I choose bold. I choose action. I choose what’s right for the people. I choose to make a difference.”

— Bill Richardson

5. “Natural gas is the future. It is here.”

— Bill Richardson

6. “Make no mistake, the point of cutting the personal income tax and the capital gains cut is to send an unmistakable message to business.”

— Bill Richardson

7. “Raising a family is difficult enough. But it’s even more difficult for single parents struggling to make ends meet. They don’t need more obstacles. They need more opportunities.”

— Bill Richardson

8. “Ignorance has always been the weapon of tyrants; enlightenment the salvation of the free.”

— Bill Richardson

9. “You have a 12-foot fence. You know what’ll happen? Thirteen foot ladders.”

— Bill Richardson

10. “I’m not a big believer in doing things unilaterally. I’m a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make something work for all people.”

— Bill Richardson

11. “Meeting a dragon is like falling in love. Even though you have never experienced it before, you will know when it has happened.”

— Bill Richardson

12. “So what if it’s risky? It’s the right thing to do. What we’re talking about is 160 people in deep pain. It only affects them.”

— Bill Richardson

13. “Trump’s immigration positions do not deserve a response because they are so outlandish. If you force me to give you three words to describe them they would be: ludicrous, impractical and racist.”

— Bill Richardson

14. “The United States is for a two-state solution. The United States wants to see the Israelis and Palestinians come together.”

— Bill Richardson

15. “Our theme is, ‘Respected abroad, strong at home.’ What do we mean by that? Basically that we want a strong emphasis on affordable health care and education, safer at home, positive themes. And respected abroad – a foreign policy with alliances.”

— Bill Richardson

16. “The heart, I think, which is the home of all things rhythmic, is where learned poems go to live.”

— Bill Richardson

17. “We’re a superpower with a Third World grid.”

— Bill Richardson

18. “The conversation progressed, bumper-car style, to a very heated discussion about death and the survival of the soul. It amazes me that we, as a species, can argue so fervently over something that is, when all is said and done, unknowable and unprovable. Nonetheless, we all arrive at conclusions and cleave to our certainties: that there is nothing but the Void; or that we will find ourselves writing an admissions exam at the Pearly Gates.”

— Bill Richardson

19. “I am now a member of the private sector. I’m happy. I’ve got a little foundation. You never say never, but I may have had my last race and that was the Presidential race. I think that you only get one shot.”

— Bill Richardson

20. “The last thing we need to do, relating to teachers, is the key to a good education in this country is a strong teacher. I would have a minimum wage for all our teachers, $40,000 per year.”

— Bill Richardson

21. “The smartest thing we can do to create high-wage jobs and grow our economy is to keep our focus on education.”

— Bill Richardson

22. “We as a people, as a state, and as a community, have too much promise, too much potential, and too much at stake to go any other way than forward. We are too strong in our hearts, too innovative in our minds, and too firm in our beliefs to retreat from our goals.”

— Bill Richardson

23. “I want all Hispanics in the Republican Party, in the Democratic Party, whether Latin Americans, Central Americans, Cubans, Mexicans, I want us to unite.”

— Bill Richardson

24. “Education enables people and societies to be what they can be. It is education that allows us to see that we are in this for the long haul, and it is education that will give us the tools we need to build a better future.”

— Bill Richardson

25. “You can count on time for two things. One is that it will pass. The other is that it will never shut up.”

— Bill Richardson

26. “Education enables people and societies to be what they can be.”

— Bill Richardson

27. “Well, does he still have his fingernails? Making inquiries while negotiating the release of a US Army pilot from North Korea, in Time.”

— Bill Richardson

28. “John McCain will pay hundreds of dollars for his own shoes. But we’re the ones who have to pay for his flip-flops.”

— Bill Richardson

29. “I’ve been told that I have a lot of energy. The secret is that I use renewable resources. Some days I’m solar powered. Some days I’m wind powered. And some people in this room might think I’m hybrid gas-powered. You’ll just have to guess which it is today.”

— Bill Richardson

30. “I think what’s going to hurt the Republicans enormously is the extremist position of Mitt Romney on the immigration issue and states like New Mexico, states like Colorado, Nevada, Arizona – and I think it’s going to be the margin of victory for President Obama, a very narrow victory.”

— Bill Richardson

31. “The President, in talking about freedom and democracy, is sparking a wave of very positive democratic sentiment that might help us override both Islamic fundamentalism that has formed in that region, and also some of the hatred for our policies of invading Iraq.”

— Bill Richardson

32. “Supporting war initially was a mistake.”

— Bill Richardson

33. “As state leaders, I think its important for us to provide our perspectives on issues we face every day – like access to school spending, access to health care and governing in a global economy.”

— Bill Richardson

34. “Opposes compromise immigration bill- it tears apart families.”

— Bill Richardson

35. “Whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, our nation is stronger when we are respected throughout the world.”

— Bill Richardson

36. “We must never forget that it is the private sector – not government – that is the engine of economic opportunity. Businesses, particularly small businesses, flourish and can provide good jobs when government acts as a productive partner.”

— Bill Richardson

37. “And so we became who we are: gentle and bookish and ever so slightly confused. It is not a bad way to be, when all is said and done.”

— Bill Richardson