Top 35 Jesse Helms Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “If God had wanted us to use the metric system, Jesus would have had 10 apostles.”

— Jesse Helms

2. “Democracy used to be a good thing, but now it has gotten into the wrong hands.”

— Jesse Helms

3. “Why build a zoo when we can just put up a fence around Chapel Hill?”

— Jesse Helms

4. “I fight for what I believe. If you are not willing to stand up for what you believe, your beliefs are not strong enough.”

— Jesse Helms

Featured in: Strong Quotes

5. “The challenge is always before us. Whenever we lose sight of the principles that mattered to our founders we run into trouble.”

— Jesse Helms

6. “Compromise, hell! That’s what has happened to us all down the line – and that’s the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?”

— Jesse Helms

7. “I have tried at every point to seek God’s wisdom on the decisions I made, and I made it my business to speak up on behalf of the things God tells us are important to Him.”

— Jesse Helms

8. “Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches.”

— Jesse Helms

9. “It’s their deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct that is responsible for the disease.”

— Jesse Helms

10. “What I am suggesting is hard work and it can be slow work, but the rewards are well worth it.”

— Jesse Helms

11. “There is a big difference between The Merchant of Venice and a photograph of two males of different races in an erotic pose on a marble table top.”

— Jesse Helms

12. “It has become more acceptable to describe yourself as a conservative, but not everyone who uses that term about themselves really is truly conservative.”

— Jesse Helms

13. “It may surprise people to know that I advocate the reform of the United Nations, not its abolishment.”

— Jesse Helms

14. “America must be the moral leader. It is not enough to have power. Power must be used to protect freedom and give all people hope for the opportunity to see the fruit of their own labor.”

— Jesse Helms

15. “The Lord did not make me impossible of error. All I’ve had to offer you is the total dedication in serving you as best I know how. And I’ve always leveled with you, and always will, knowing full well that everyone will not agree with me.”

— Jesse Helms

16. “This is an area where North Carolina does excel. I have known more colorful North Carolina political figures than I have colorless ones.”

— Jesse Helms

17. “I don’t care what the New York Times says about me, and no one I care about cares what the New York Times says about me.”

— Jesse Helms

18. “The big secret to winning elections is to get more votes than your opponent. My friend Representative Robin Hayes is a good example to study.”

— Jesse Helms

19. “We can live our own lives in a way that does not bring reproach on the principles we claim to support.”

— Jesse Helms

20. “Such schemes take money from people who can least afford to spend it to support an unneeded bureaucracy that eats money people thought they were providing for education.”

— Jesse Helms

21. “The New York Times and Washington Post are both infested with homosexuals themselves. Just about every person down there is a homosexual or lesbian.”

— Jesse Helms

22. “The interests of the United States are better served by demanding reform and seeing that reform takes place than by removing our influence from the UN.”

— Jesse Helms

23. “Conservatism is a hard choice for a society that has become accustomed to big government and big entitlements promoted by liberals.”

— Jesse Helms

24. “Mr. Clinton better watch out if he comes down here. He’d better have a bodyguard.”

— Jesse Helms

25. “It still surprises me when I find something in any North Carolina newspaper that isn’t mad at me about something.”

— Jesse Helms

26. “All I know is that D’Aubuisson is a free enterprise man and deeply religious.”

— Jesse Helms

27. “I want our government to encourage and protect freedom as well as our traditions of faith and family.”

— Jesse Helms

28. “I want our young people to believe as we did that there is no goal too high to reach if they are willing to work.”

— Jesse Helms

29. “I became a Republican when a very wise young lady asked me how I could remain a Democrat when I didn’t agree with what they stood for and did agree with what the Republicans supported.”

— Jesse Helms

30. “This bill attempts to make sure that President Clinton is not allowed to do by Executive Order what Congress has declined to enact in the past two congressional sessions namely, to treat homosexuals as a special class protected under various titles of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.”

— Jesse Helms

31. “I do not intend to allow the Senate to rubber-stamp the president’s plan to reward the Chinese Communists.”

— Jesse Helms

32. “I was with some Vietnamese recently, and some of them were smoking two cigarettes at the same time. That’s the kind of customers we need!”

— Jesse Helms

33. “If you want to call me a bigot, fine.”

— Jesse Helms

34. “There was no Congressional Club for my first campaign. There was no organized state group of Young Republicans, but there was a dedicated core of young people who volunteered to do anything my campaign needed.”

— Jesse Helms

35. “We have to be a state where business is welcome and jobs are created. We have to demand value for what is spent and we need to continue to resist a lottery.”

— Jesse Helms

36. “Our constituency aren’t the type of people to be on the Internet.”

— Jesse Helms