Top 180 John F. Kerry Quotes (2024 Update)
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51. “I don’t think losing 3 million jobs, having deficits as far as the eye can go, having 2 million people lose their health insurance, turning your back on kids in schools and not funding No Child Left Behind represents a vision.”

— John F. Kerry

52. “I’m an internationalist. I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations.”

— John F. Kerry

53. “I know that our country is strongest when we lead the world, when we lead strong alliances. And that’s the way Eisenhower and Reagan and Kennedy and others did it.”

— John F. Kerry

54. “I think George Mitchell is a consummate professional. He is the ideal selection to handle the job of special envoy if you choose to have a special envoy.”

— John F. Kerry

55. “Patriots don’t go to Russia. They don’t seek asylum in Cuba. They don’t seek asylum in Venezuela. They fight their cause here. Edward Snowden is a coward. He is a traitor. And he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so.”

— John F. Kerry

56. “This fight against drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a fight about our principles. Its about standing up for our environment, our families and our future, and I wont give up this fight.”

— John F. Kerry

57. “You’d be amazed at the number of people who want to introduce themselves to you in the men’s room. It’s the most bizarre part of this entire thing.”

— John F. Kerry

58. “Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us.”

— John F. Kerry

59. “I have a plan to protect the environment so that we leave this place in better shape to our children than we were handed it by our parents.”

— John F. Kerry

60. “We’re in a battle for our lives for things that really matter to us. There’s a shell game going on like I’ve never seen before.”

— John F. Kerry

61. “When I was in Vietnam I learned a lot about the promises that soldiers make to each other. The Marines have a promise to never leave behind their dead. In this country, as citizen soldiers, we need to make the commitment to each other that we will never leave our veterans behind.”

— John F. Kerry

62. “I figured out Karl Rove’s political strategy – make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls.”

— John F. Kerry

63. “I’m sick and tired of these despicable Republican attacks that always seem to come from those who never can be found to serve in war, but love to attack those who did. I’m not going to be lectured by a stuffed suit White House mouthpiece standing behind a podium.”

— John F. Kerry

64. “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests!”

— John F. Kerry

65. “I look forward to standing up and holding George Bush accountable for pushing seniors off of Medicare into HMOs.”

— John F. Kerry

66. “We need to guarantee equal rights and civil rights and say that, here in America, workers have the right to organize – women have the right to choose – and justice belongs to everyone regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation.”

— John F. Kerry

67. “So we can do a better job of homeland security. I can do a better job of waging a smarter, more effective war on terror and guarantee that we will go after the terrorists. I will hunt them down, and we’ll kill them, we’ll capture them. We’ll do whatever is necessary to be safe.”

— John F. Kerry

68. “There should be a Transatlantic renaissance between the US and Europe based on shared prosperity, security, and values.”

— John F. Kerry

69. “I’ve met foreign leaders who can’t go out and say this publicly, but boy, they look at you and say, you’ve got to win this, you’ve got to beat this guy, we need a new policy, things like that.”

— John F. Kerry

70. “Unlike Washington, which is stuck in ideological gridlock, Americans feel the impact of climate change in their own hometowns and they know something must be done.”

— John F. Kerry

71. “We need a new approach to national security.”

— John F. Kerry

72. “We can’t change minds without knowing what’s in them.”

— John F. Kerry

73. “Medicare is paid for by the American taxpayer. Medicare belongs to you. Medicare is for seniors, who many of them are on fixed income, to lift them out of poverty.”

— John F. Kerry

74. “The American spirit wears no political label. In service to others and yes, in sacrifice for our country, there are no Republicans; there are no Democrats; there are only Americans.”

— John F. Kerry

75. “We are all proud of is World War II where we went in, we were decisive, we came to the conclusion that freedom prevailed, and we were heroes.”

— John F. Kerry

76. “I actually did vote for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.”

— John F. Kerry

77. “I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him.”

— John F. Kerry

78. “I want to start by saying something nice about President Bush. Of all the presidents we’ve had with the last name of Bush, his economic plan ranks in the top two.”

— John F. Kerry

79. “We cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.”

— John F. Kerry

80. “What we need to do is raise the minimum wage. We also need to hold onto equal pay. Women work for 76 cents on the dollar for the same work that men do. That’s not right in America.”

— John F. Kerry

81. “It’s hard to say that something is legitimate when a whole portion of the country can’t vote and doesn’t vote.”

— John F. Kerry

82. “When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don’t advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy.”

— John F. Kerry

83. “You don’t value families if you force them to take up a collection to buy body armor for a son or daughter in the service.”

— John F. Kerry

84. “Today, if you’re an American business, you actually get a benefit for going overseas. You get to defer your taxes. So if you’re looking at a competitive world, you say to yourself, “Hey, I do better overseas than I do here in America.””

— John F. Kerry

85. “We will not be derailed by criminal anarchists who legitimately claim a religious cause.”

— John F. Kerry

86. “I’m proud of my medals. I always was proud of them.”

— John F. Kerry

87. “Violence has to end. And Israelis have a bright to defend themselves against any violence that is attacking innocent people with a knife in the old city in Jerusalem or elsewhere. No country should be under siege like that.”

— John F. Kerry

88. “No one is going to question my commitment to the defence of our nation. I don’t know what it is these Republicans, who didn’t serve in any war, have against those of us who are Democrats who did.”

— John F. Kerry

89. “We deserve a president of the United States who will write laws for all Americans, not for campaign contributors. And I intend to be a president for all Americans who takes back the flag of our country because it doesn’t belong to any party, doesn’t belong to any president.”

— John F. Kerry

90. “I get always a little uptight when I hear politicians say how exceptional America is.”

— John F. Kerry

91. “I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend it as president.”

— John F. Kerry

92. “I personally didn’t see personal atrocities in the sense I saw somebody cut a head off or something like that. However, I did take part in free-fire zones, I did take part in harassment and interdiction fire, I did take part in search-and-destroy missions.”

— John F. Kerry

93. “Real Democrats don’t abandon the middle class.”

— John F. Kerry

94. “Ask Osama bin Laden if he’s better off now than he was four years ago.”

— John F. Kerry

95. “We must uphold the promise of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, and Clinton and never allow the President and his Republican friends to threaten Social Security by putting it on the Wall Street trading block.”

— John F. Kerry

96. “I just want to assure you that both President Bush and I have very firm alibis.”

— John F. Kerry

97. “I don’t know what compassionate conservative means. Does it mean cutting kids out of after school programs, Does it mean drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge? Does it mean sending kids to Iraq without body armor that’s state of the art?”

— John F. Kerry

98. “Reduce US military presence in Iraq; and bring in neighbors.”

— John F. Kerry

99. “At every step of the way, George W. Bush has put the narrow interests of the few ahead of the interests of most Americans.”

— John F. Kerry

100. “In a few years, you should be able to plug your American-made plug-in hybrid into the outlet in your garage, so that you never use a drop of gas on your daily commute. This won’t happen overnight, but I promise you, it is closer than you think.”

— John F. Kerry