Top 180 John F. Kerry Quotes (2026 Update)
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101. “Real Democrats don’t abandon the middle class.”

— John F. Kerry

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

— John F. Kerry

103. “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

104. “There the Bush Administration has offered only a merry-go-round policy. They got up on their high horse, whooped and hollered, rode around in circles and ended right back where they’d started.”

— John F. Kerry

105. “The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.”

— John F. Kerry

106. “From the moment I take office, I will stand up to the special interests and stand with hardworking families so that we can give America back its future and its ideals.”

— John F. Kerry

107. “Republican secretaries of state from Kissinger to Baker, Powell to Rice, President Bush, 71 United States Senators all supported President Obama’s new START treaty, but not Mitt Romney.”

— John F. Kerry

108. “We are a nation of laws and liberties, not of a knock in the night. So it is time to end the era of John Ashcroft. That starts with replacing the Patriot Act with a new law that protects our people and our liberties at the same time.”

— John F. Kerry

109. “We have an electorate that doesn’t always pay that much attention to what’s going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or truth or what’s happening.”

— John F. Kerry

110. “There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire.”

— John F. Kerry

111. “Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama.”

— John F. Kerry

112. “I’m for ethanol, and I think it’s a very important partial ingredient of the overall mix of alternative and renewable fuels we ought to commit to.”

— John F. Kerry

113. “It’s time we framed every question – every issue – not in terms of what’s in it for ‘me,’ but what’s in it for all of us?”

— John F. Kerry

114. “My friends, that’s trickle-down economics, and I believe every worker in America is tired of being trickled on by George W. Bush.”

— John F. Kerry

115. “Bush-McCain stategy in Iraq is policy to stay, not to win.”

— John F. Kerry

116. “And whatever our faith – whatever our faith, one belief should bind us all: The measure of our character is our willingness to give of ourselves for others and for our country.”

— John F. Kerry

117. “I know there are a lot of musicians and a lot of artists, and there are a lot of writers and other people who inspire young people, but I’d like to see somebody in political life be able to connect and make these choices that we need to make in Washington real in terms of people’s lives.”

— John F. Kerry

118. “I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations.”

— John F. Kerry

119. “The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed ‘window of vulnerability,’ which we now know not to exist.”

— John F. Kerry

120. “I can’t take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an Atheist. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America.”

— John F. Kerry

121. “Unlike George Bush and his friends at the big oil companies, I’m going to work for a real energy policy for this country that decreases America’s dependence on foreign oil and helps lower the costs to American families.”

— John F. Kerry

122. “So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real.”

— John F. Kerry

123. “I promise just to serve two terms. Republicans do it differently. They just have the son repeat the father’s whole first term.”

— John F. Kerry

124. “I will never cede the authority of our country or our security to any other nation. I’ll never give a veto over American security to any other entity – not a nation, not a country, not an institution.”

— John F. Kerry

125. “After Mitt Romney said it would be naive to go into Pakistan to pursue the terrorists, it took President Obama, against the advice of many, to give that order and finally rid this earth of Osama bin Laden. Ask Osama bin Laden if he is better off now than he was four years ago!”

— John F. Kerry

126. “Strong leadership demands more than the willingness to use force. It means directing the use of the right tools at the right time for the right purpose and the right cause.”

— John F. Kerry

127. “Here I am in the state of New Mexico. George Bush is still in the state of denial. New Mexico has five electoral votes. The state of denial has none. I like my chances.”

— John F. Kerry

128. “Those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions and we will defend our democracy.”

— John F. Kerry

129. “Democrats proposing success in Iraq by political solution.”

— John F. Kerry

130. “Think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-all challenges that know no borders-the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them.”

— John F. Kerry

131. “I can tell you, Massachusetts, fastest growing sector of our economy is clean energy and energy efficiency companies. And they’re growing faster than any other sector.”

— John F. Kerry

132. “Our purpose now is to reclaim democracy itself. We are here to affirm that when Americans stand up and speak their minds and say America can do better, that is not a challenge to patriotism; it is the heart and soul of patriotism.”

— John F. Kerry

133. “We have to recognize that there is a strong, fresh wind blowing, powered by these new information technologies. It will be increasingly difficult for dictators to impose their will through sheer brutality.”

— John F. Kerry

134. “America has not led but fled on the issue of global warming.”

— John F. Kerry

135. “America must always be the world’s paramount military power, but we can magnify our power through alliances.”

— John F. Kerry

136. “That is what Americans do. We face a challenge – no matter how great – because we know that on the other side there is always hope.”

— John F. Kerry

137. “George Bush’s vision does not live up to the America I enlisted in the Navy to defend, the America I have fought for in the Senate, and the America that I hope to lead as president.”

— John F. Kerry

138. “As the saying goes, I have big heels to fill.”

— John F. Kerry

139. “I still believe Americas destiny is to become a living testament to what free human beings can accomplish by acting in unity.”

— John F. Kerry

140. “This President has made, I regret to say, a colossal error of judgment. and judgment is what we look for in the president of the President of the United States of America.”

— John F. Kerry

141. “Governor Dean has no policy on Iraq evidently, except ‘no.’ ‘No’ is not a policy.”

— John F. Kerry

142. “We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways. Someone who was deeply against the war in 1969 or 1970 may well have served their country with equal passion and patriotism by opposing the war as by fighting in it.”

— John F. Kerry

143. “President Obama has made it his mission that we welcome our troops home with care and concern and the respect they deserve. That is how an exceptional nation says thank you to its most exceptional men and women.”

— John F. Kerry

144. “It took President Obama to make America lead like America again.”

— John F. Kerry

145. “I’m going to be a president who believes in science.”

— John F. Kerry

146. “I’m going to be honest with you – I don’t know a lot about Cuba’s healthcare system. Is it a government-run system?”

— John F. Kerry

147. “I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.”

— John F. Kerry

148. “If you think I would have gone to war the way George Bush did, don’t vote for me.”

— John F. Kerry

149. “If America can go to the moon, then in the decades to come we should not ever have to have young Americans sent to any part of the world to defend and die for America’s gluttony on fossil fuel.”

— John F. Kerry

150. “A fundamental premise of politics is we can make this work if people just never figure it out.”

— John F. Kerry