Top 30 Jack Abramoff Quotes (2024 Update)

1. “If you make the choice to serve the public, public service, then serve the public, not yourself.”

— Jack Abramoff

2. “I’m a human being. I’m not perfect.”

— Jack Abramoff

3. “As a lobbyist, I was completely against term limits, and I know a lot of people are against term limits, and I was one of the leaders, because why? As a lobbyist, once you buy a congressional office, you don’t have to re-buy that office in six years, right?”

— Jack Abramoff

4. “Human beings are weak.”

— Jack Abramoff

5. “I might dream, but I am no dreamer.”

— Jack Abramoff

6. “No one wants a domain with their name on it owned by somebody else.”

— Jack Abramoff

7. “I’m not a complete libertarian. There is a proper role in some areas of the government to have rules and regulations – I’m not an anarchist.”

— Jack Abramoff

8. “I’m an aggressive person.”

— Jack Abramoff

9. “You can’t beat somebody with nobody.”

— Jack Abramoff

10. “Words will not be able to ever express how sorry I am for this, and I have profound regret and sorrow for the multitude of mistakes and harm I have caused.”

— Jack Abramoff

11. “Lobbying is not a bad thing. I’m not trying to say that we shouldn’t have lobbyists or we shouldn’t have lobbying to petition our government. It’s in the Constitution, and it’s something that should be honorable and good.”

— Jack Abramoff

12. “I’m not asking people to feel sorry for me.”

— Jack Abramoff

13. “I support myself by public speaking and trying to work on as many appropriate and legitimate ventures as I can.”

— Jack Abramoff

14. “It’s very difficult for felons to live in society.”

— Jack Abramoff

15. “Washington’s a dangerous place.”

— Jack Abramoff

16. “One of my personality defects, perhaps, is that I’m rather ADD, and I work on a bunch of things at once.”

— Jack Abramoff

17. “I’m a hypercompetitive individual.”

— Jack Abramoff

18. “The hope in radio is to build an audience over a number of years, a slow build to see if something works.”

— Jack Abramoff

19. “In my religion it’s actually better to know you’re doing wrong and try to improve that wrong than to think philosophically that what you’re doing is right and in fact it is wrong.”

— Jack Abramoff

20. “I did this within a philosophical framework, and a moral and legal framework. And I have been turned into a cartoon of the greatest villain in the history of lobbying.”

— Jack Abramoff

21. “I’m not trying to become popular.”

— Jack Abramoff

22. “In the past two years, I’ve started the process of becoming a new man. I am much chastened and profoundly remorseful over the reckless and hurtful things I have done in my life, especially those which have brought me before you today.”

— Jack Abramoff

23. “If you chose to serve in Congress or on a congressional staff, you should be barred for life from working for any company, organization, or association which lobbies the federal government.”

— Jack Abramoff

24. “If I read the articles about me, and I didn’t know me, I would think I was Satan.”

— Jack Abramoff

25. “I know I’m intellectually capable of finding a series of things and making hundreds of millions. I have to get there and do it. Carefully. Legally.”

— Jack Abramoff

26. “I think the American people deserve somebody telling them what is really happening in Washington.”

— Jack Abramoff

27. “I try to avoid saying anything positive about any presidential candidate for fear that if I actually like them then I will kill their campaign.”

— Jack Abramoff

28. “In the past few years I have begun the process of becoming a new man.”

— Jack Abramoff

29. “Well, I don’t think most Americans are playing the super-PAC game. I think what you have is elites on both sides playing the super-PAC game.”

— Jack Abramoff

30. “I’m not exactly the endorsement people are seeking.”

— Jack Abramoff

31. “Some issues lend themselves to grassroots campaigns – homeschooling works well – but others require contrivance and connivance to whip up support. Often, lobbyists will hire vendors to dispatch blast emails and robocalls in the hopes of bombarding Congressional offices with citizen fury.”

— Jack Abramoff

32. “Democrats don’t react the same way Republicans do, because they are not forced to react the same way Republicans are forced to react. They get to be as corrupt as, basically, they want, and just ignore it.”

— Jack Abramoff

33. “They realize that spending millions to save billions is just good business.”

— Jack Abramoff

34. “Well, I think the great tragedy in American politics is what is legal, not what is illegal.”

— Jack Abramoff