Top 100 Dick Cheney Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You wake up every morning with a smile on your face because you’ve got a new day you never expected to have. And there’s a sense of wonderment. Nothing short of magical.”

— Dick Cheney

2. “Principle is OK up to a certain point, but principle doesn’t do any good if you lose.”

— Dick Cheney

3. “Two days ahead of schedule, the world witnessed the arrival of a free and sovereign Iraq.”

— Dick Cheney

4. “I wake up every morning literally with a smile on my face, grateful for another day I never thought I’d see.”

— Dick Cheney

5. “It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.”

— Dick Cheney

6. “In terms of asking questions, I plead guilty. I ask a hell of a lot of questions. That’s my job.”

— Dick Cheney

7. “Everyone knows that you’re not really a real man unless you own a gun.”

— Dick Cheney

8. “Except for the occasional heart attack, I never felt better.”

— Dick Cheney

9. “Direct threats require decisive action.”

— Dick Cheney

10. “We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary.”

— Dick Cheney

11. “It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws.”

— Dick Cheney

12. “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.”

— Dick Cheney

13. “The good Lord didn’t see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all considered, one would not normally choose to go. But we go where the business is.”

— Dick Cheney

14. “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.”

— Dick Cheney

15. “As Vice President one of the things I spend time on is the continuity of government; that’s the main reason I’m here is a back up for the President if anything happens to him.”

— Dick Cheney

16. “My own belief is that the way we grow the economy, create jobs, create wealth is in the private sector. The government doesn’t do that.”

— Dick Cheney

17. “I think it’s fair to say you can’t predict a straight line to victory. You know, there’ll be good days and bad days along the way.”

— Dick Cheney

18. “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

— Dick Cheney

19. “If you’re going to go increase taxes on small businesses, you’re going to slow down the extent to which we’re able to reduce unemployment. So I think it’s a serious mistake; the wrong time to raise taxes.”

— Dick Cheney

20. “Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well.”

— Dick Cheney

21. “Unfortunately, we don’t have the option of marriage in our country. We could go to Britain or Spain or Argentina and do something symbolic, but that’s not what I want. I want to have the rights of anybody else in my home country. I don’t want to be a second-class citizen.”

— Dick Cheney

22. “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.”

— Dick Cheney

23. “I think you can not be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.”

— Dick Cheney

24. “The only thing left that shows I was a heart patient is I have a scar down the middle of my chest where they went in three times to do open heart surgery. I have a brand new heart inside, and all the mechanical and electronic gear and so forth is all gone.”

— Dick Cheney

25. “The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world’s oil and lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.”

— Dick Cheney

26. “No, I’ve always been impressed with the tremendous resilience of the American economy. I think over the years, over the decades, it’s demonstrated this tremendous ability to take severe body blows, if you will, and bounce back.”

— Dick Cheney

27. “I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish.”

— Dick Cheney

28. “The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.”

— Dick Cheney

29. “I’m more concerned with bad guys who got out and released than I am with a few that in fact were innocent.”

— Dick Cheney

30. “I had other priorities in the sixties than military service.”

— Dick Cheney

31. “We have to make America the best place in the world to do business.”

— Dick Cheney

32. “Cheney, Cheney, you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide.”

— Dick Cheney

33. “I do find that the mainstream media oftentimes is what I would consider off base or has a bias.”

— Dick Cheney

34. “Let us rid ourselves of the fiction that low oil prices are somehow good for the United States.”

— Dick Cheney

35. “From kindergarten to graduation, I went to public schools, and I know that they are a key to being sure that every child has a chance to succeed and to rise in the world.”

— Dick Cheney

36. “The Senator from Massachusetts has given us ample grounds to doubt the judgment and the attitude he brings to bear on vital issues of national security.”

— Dick Cheney

37. “I got sick, hospitalized, had no insurance. And the money I had saved for our honeymoon went to pay medical bills. So I had been in the position of not having insurance when I needed health care.”

— Dick Cheney

38. “We have great information. They’re going to welcome us. It’ll be like the American Army going through the streets of Paris. They’re sitting there ready to form a new government. The people will be so happy with their freedoms that we’ll probably back ourselves out of there within a month or two.”

— Dick Cheney

39. “We are, as a matter of empirical fact and undeniable history, the greatest force for good the world has ever known.”

— Dick Cheney

40. “What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course of action.”

— Dick Cheney

41. “I can’t think of a time when we’ve had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian.”

— Dick Cheney

42. “I mean, it’s not just one day you get up, bang, and you got Osama bin Laden. It’s the kind of thing where an awful lot of people over a long period of time – thousands have worked this case and these issues and followed on the leads and captured bad guys and interrogated them and so-forth.”

— Dick Cheney

43. “I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.”

— Dick Cheney

44. “I’ve been extraordinarily fortunate that I’ve been able to go live a very active, stressful life. And I don’t believe that my heart disease changed me for the worst.”

— Dick Cheney

45. “I learned early on that if you don’t want your memos to get you in trouble someday, just don’t write any.”

— Dick Cheney

46. “There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve.”

— Dick Cheney

47. “I think we need a very, very serious effort, primarily through tax policy to provide incentives and encouragement for people to save and invest and expand their businesses and to create more jobs. The kind of thing we did in the early Reagan years, 30 years ago. I think that’s essential.”

— Dick Cheney

48. “I think there’s no question but what the tail end of the Bush administration, Bush-Cheney administration, that we took steps specifically geared to try and free up the financial sector.”

— Dick Cheney

49. “Senator Kerry says he sees two Americas. It makes the whole thing mutual – America sees two John Kerrys.”

— Dick Cheney

50. “We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history’s latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power.”

— Dick Cheney