Top 100 Dick Cheney Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I think the record speaks for itself. These are two individuals who have been for the war when the headlines were good and against it when their poll ratings were bad.”

— Dick Cheney

52. “Had the decision belonged to Senator Kerry, Saddam hussein would still be in power today in Iraq. In fact, Saddam Hussein would almost certainly still be in control of Kuwait.”

— Dick Cheney

53. “Instead, the terrorists see just what they were hoping for, our unity gone, our resolve shaken, our leaders distracted. In short, they see weakness and opportunity.”

— Dick Cheney

54. “The Columbia is lost, but the dreams that inspired its crew remain with us.”

— Dick Cheney

55. “When George Bush asked me to sign on, it obviously wasn’t because he was worried about carrying Wyoming. We got 70 percent of the vote in Wyoming, although those three electoral votes turned out to be pretty important last time around.”

— Dick Cheney

56. “The plan was criticized by some retired military officers embedded in TV studios. But with every advance by our coalition forces, the wisdom of that plan becomes more apparent.”

— Dick Cheney

57. “The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.”

— Dick Cheney

58. “I had a reputation of being somewhat moderate, partly, I think, because I wasn’t a ‘bomb thrower’ like some of my conservative colleagues, and partly because I got along with people all across the political spectrum.”

— Dick Cheney

59. “As a former secretary of defense, I think Donald Rumsfeld is the best secretary of defense the United States has ever had.”

— Dick Cheney

60. “Under our plan you can build wealth, even if you don’t have a dollar to spare.”

— Dick Cheney

61. “You can’t fall back on the private sector and say, ‘You take care of the nation’s banking system.’ That’s a fundamental function of the government, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and the FDIC, etc. All of those agencies have a major role to play there.”

— Dick Cheney

62. “I think the decision that’s been made with respect to allowing gays to serve openly in the military is a good one.”

— Dick Cheney

63. “Obviously, it’s a big problem how do we provide quality care to the maximum number of people. And it’s not an easy problem to solve.”

— Dick Cheney

64. “I did my 40 years in Washington, 40-plus, and it’s time to pause and reflect and think about what I’ve seen and done.”

— Dick Cheney

65. “You know, in this business, you don’t have any control over what the press says and how they portray things. And that’s their prerogative. But I think anybody who looks at it objectively has trouble making the case that somehow this is a bad economy.”

— Dick Cheney

66. “I think I was able to survive five heart attacks because I never postponed going to the hospital when something didn’t feel right.”

— Dick Cheney

67. “Like many Americans, I’ve always been intrigued by Bill Clinton. I obviously didn’t always agree with him – enjoyed running against his legacy in 2000, when Al Gore was his designated successor, but I don’t have anything negative I would say about Bill Clinton.”

— Dick Cheney

68. “In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with al Qaeda, and his regime is no more.”

— Dick Cheney

69. “I’m not apologetic with respect to the policies of the Bush administration. I think we basically got it right.”

— Dick Cheney

70. “In our own country, we take democratic values seriously – and so we always have a vigorous debate on the issues. That’s part of the greatness of America, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”

— Dick Cheney

71. “You cannot be driven by the polls. The polls change all the time; they’re easily manipulated by whoever wants to ask those poll questions; they go up; they go down.”

— Dick Cheney

72. “We’ve had experiences where the president’s been shot, but never had a situation where the vice president shot somebody.”

— Dick Cheney

73. “That intelligence capability is enormously important to the United States, to our conduct of foreign policy, to defense matters, to economic matters. And I am a strong supporter of it.”

— Dick Cheney

74. “A little tough talk in the midst of a campaign or as part of a presidential debate cannot obscure a record of 30 years of being on the wrong side of defense issues.”

— Dick Cheney

75. “I’m absolutely convinced that the threat we face now, the idea of a terrorist in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, is very real and that we have to use extraordinary measures to deal with it.”

— Dick Cheney

76. “I have not seen Al Gore’s movie.”

— Dick Cheney

77. “Sarah Palin is an attractive candidate, but based on her background, she only was governor for what, two years. I don’t think she passed that test.”

— Dick Cheney

78. “It’s a tougher program for tougher customers.”

— Dick Cheney

79. “Europeans know that their great experiment in building peace, unity and prosperity cannot survive as a privileged enclave, surrounded on its outskirts by breeding grounds of hatred and fanaticism.”

— Dick Cheney

80. “We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

— Dick Cheney

81. “How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat? If we had not acted, Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be in power.”

— Dick Cheney

82. “The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people. I mean, these are terrorists for the most part.”

— Dick Cheney

83. “We haven’t really had the time yet to pore through all those records in Baghdad. We’ll find ample evidence confirming the link, that is the connection if you will between al Qaida and the Iraqi intelligence services. They have worked together on a number of occasions.”

— Dick Cheney

84. “And the fact of the matter is there were thousands of people that went through those training camps in Afghanistan. We know they are seeking deadlier weapons – chemical, biological and nuclear weapons if they can get it.”

— Dick Cheney

85. “I do not believe the President requires any additional authorization from the Congress before committing US forces to achieve our objectives in the Gulf.”

— Dick Cheney

86. “Another argument holds that opposing Saddam Hussein would cause even greater troubles in that part of the world, and interfere with the larger war against terror. I believe the opposite is true.”

— Dick Cheney

87. “Well, we’ve got a major effort under way to try to educate everybody, to let them know we have a zero tolerance policy where sexual assault is involved.”

— Dick Cheney

88. “There’s overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.”

— Dick Cheney

89. “I don’t pay a lot of attention, frankly, to what Barack Obama says.”

— Dick Cheney

90. “As I think about the future, I’m back where most people live their lives. Which is, death is not imminent, and that’s different.”

— Dick Cheney

91. “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”

— Dick Cheney

92. “You’ve got a job to do, and because you’ve got a job to do, you’ve got to focus on that, so you don’t have time for personal considerations.”

— Dick Cheney

93. “I’ve worked for four presidents and watched two others up close, and I know that there’s no such thing as a routine day in the Oval Office.”

— Dick Cheney

94. “The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I’m not at all sure that that’s what the Obama administration believes.”

— Dick Cheney

95. “I think we need to significantly reduce the regulatory burden on the private sector. The Obama administration is doing the opposite. They’re loading on more and more regulation on the private respect to how the economy functions.”

— Dick Cheney

96. “I worship the ground Paul Ryan walks on.”

— Dick Cheney

97. “Westerners know the difference between a talker and the real deal. If Rick Perry wasn’t right to be governor of Texas, why should he be president?”

— Dick Cheney

98. “We know he’s been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.”

— Dick Cheney

99. “I think Barack Obama is a one-term President.”

— Dick Cheney

100. “President Obama has diminished American power and retreated from the field of battle, fueling rising threats against our nation. He has pursued a foreign policy built on appeasing our adversaries, abandoning our allies, and apologizing for America.”

— Dick Cheney