Top 250 Rand Paul Quotes (2025 Update)
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201. “The president’s rattling the saber and beating the drums may have an effect.”

— Rand Paul

202. “I hate that Mosul is falling, but I also think that for 10 years we have supplied the Iraqis and they can’t stand up and do anything to defend their country, and it is all up to us?”

— Rand Paul

203. “On the Gang of Eight bill, there was no provisions really for extra scrutiny or safety for refugees. At the time the bill came up, two Iraqi refugees came to my home town, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Their fingerprints were on a bomb from Iraq. They were in the database, but we didn’t pick them up.”

— Rand Paul

204. “The president wants more tax money in Washington. I want more money left in the communities, particularly poor communities, particularly communities that have high unemployment.”

— Rand Paul

205. “Everybody is looking for an election where they can do something and participate.”

— Rand Paul

206. “I think this sets a very bad precedent, the president unilaterally on his own starting war without any consent from Congress.”

— Rand Paul

207. “I think if we want to defeat terrorism, I think if we truly are sincere about defeating terrorism, we need to quit arming the allies of ISIS. If we want to defeat terrorism, the boots on the ground – the boots on the ground need to be Arab boots on the ground.”

— Rand Paul

208. “You can not be a conservative if you’re going to keep promoting new programs that you’re not going to pay for.”

— Rand Paul

209. “The 11 million, I think, are never going home, don’t need to be sent home, and I would incorporate them into our society by giving them work visas and making them taxpayers.”

— Rand Paul

210. “You can tell a person’s religion 85 percent of the time from their phone records.”

— Rand Paul

211. “I think my dad has helped me tremendously.”

— Rand Paul

212. “I’m the leading voice in America for not arming the allies of ISIS.”

— Rand Paul

213. “It is impossible for African-Americans not to feel like their government is particularly targeting them.”

— Rand Paul

214. “I think when we think about the judgment of someone who might want World War III, we might think about someone who might shut down a bridge because they don’t like their friends;.”

— Rand Paul

215. “You can send a clear message to the establishment.”

— Rand Paul

216. “American inventiveness and the desire to build developed because we were guaranteed the right to own our success.”

— Rand Paul

217. “When you ask yourself, whoever you are, that think you’re going to support Donald Trump, think, do you believe in the Constitution? Are you going to change the Constitution?”

— Rand Paul

218. “I think that, most importantly, when I see issues of war, I see them in a personal vein, and I am reluctant to go to war unless there’s a real, valid American interest because I’ve seen the wounded soldiers.”

— Rand Paul

219. “We have 11 million people said to be in our country illegally. Forty percent of them are said to have overstayed their visa. Do we know where they are?”

— Rand Paul

220. “There’s 150,000 students here from the Middle East. If 40% of them have overstayed their visa, don’t we need to know where they are, what they’re doing, are they obeying our rules?”

— Rand Paul

221. “For most of our history, no one dared to tell Americans, ‘you don’t build that.’”

— Rand Paul

222. “In our state, I’m really proud of the fact that the ones who overturned Jim Crow in Kentucky were Republicans fighting against an entirely unified Democrat Party. So I am proud to be Republican. I can’t imagine being anything else.”

— Rand Paul

223. “So why did I run? I tell people that I got tired of throwing things at my television, and that is at least partially true.”

— Rand Paul

224. “I think if Russia is really an honest signatory to the chemical weapons ban, if Syria wants to be, ultimately someone has to be responsible for killing civilians. And that’s the hard part out of this.”

— Rand Paul

225. “Really, while gas is an awful thing to watch – the death is painful – to even watch these deaths – it’s also bad to die from a bullet, a hand grenade, or a machete.”

— Rand Paul

226. “We shouldn’t be fearful of freedom, we shouldn’t be fearful of individual liberty.”

— Rand Paul

227. “With freedom comes responsibility and sometimes individuals don’t always make the right choices. When they don’t they pay the price, learn their lesson, and move on, better educated, situated and solvent.”

— Rand Paul

228. “The government has investigated our program of collecting through a generalized fashion, everyone’s phone records in the country. And they found that no terrorist case has been thwarted through this.”

— Rand Paul

229. “I think there is some overreach in the sense that the EPA now says: if Congress doesn’t pass greenhouse emissions regulations or testing, we’ll simply do it on our own. I think that’s an arrogance of a regulatory body run amok.”

— Rand Paul

230. “Foreign aid is not something the vast majority of Americans support, but definitely not conservatives.”

— Rand Paul

231. “The people who get the ability to use force have to be watched carefully by civilians to make sure they don’t use it excessively.”

— Rand Paul

232. “I do not yet know if I will find a Romney presidency more acceptable on foreign policy. But I do know that I must oppose the most recent statements made by Mitt Romney in which he says he, as president, could take us to war unilaterally with Iran, without any approval from Congress.”

— Rand Paul

233. “I’ve had an interest in politics since I was a little kid.”

— Rand Paul

234. “I don’t think we’re actually using the constitutional tools that we have in an appropriate fashion.”

— Rand Paul

235. “I would argue that the objective evidence shows that big government is not a friend to African Americans.”

— Rand Paul

236. “I just can’t vote to go to war unless I think there’s a real clear-cut American purpose in the war, that we’re going to win and that we’re not going fight for stalemate.”

— Rand Paul

237. “ISIL is not the JV team. I cannot stress enough that there’s a terrorist army in Syria and Iraq that wants to attack the homeland and we’re not doing anything about it. So how do you defeat the ideology? Build up others? You reject Rand Paul.”

— Rand Paul

238. “Unless you really stand for something, people aren’t motivated to go out and vote for you.”

— Rand Paul

239. “As long as I sit at Henry Clay’s desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement, but I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin, Cassius Clay, who refused to forsake the life of any human, simply to find agreement.”

— Rand Paul

240. “If you are going to kill the families of terrorists, realize that there’s something called the Geneva Convention we’re going to have to pull out of. It would defy every norm that is America.”

— Rand Paul

241. “I think if we ban certain religions, if we censor the Internet, I think that at that point the terrorists will have won.”

— Rand Paul

242. “President Obama is on course to add more debt than all the previous presidents in history – combined.”

— Rand Paul

243. “It’s curious that only in Washington can you spend $2 billion and claim that you’re saving money.”

— Rand Paul

244. “I’m not in favor of any discrimination of any form.”

— Rand Paul

245. “You know, when Republicans were in charge, we doubled the debt. But, now, our concern is the Democrats are in charge and they’re tripling the debt. So, really, our concern is that we want smaller government.”

— Rand Paul

246. “I am encouraged President Obama now says he will fulfill his constitutional obligation to seek authorization for any potential military action in Syria. This is the most important decision any President or any Senator must make, and it deserves vigorous debate.”

— Rand Paul

247. “I think if you have a two-story office and you hire someone who’s handicapped, it might be reasonable to let him have an office on the first floor rather than the government saying you have to have a $100,000 elevator.”

— Rand Paul

248. “I’m an internationalist. I want to help others, not just kill terrorists.”

— Rand Paul

249. “I’m not someone who’s sort of still trying to figure out what I believe in.”

— Rand Paul

250. “If I had been told to get out of the street as a teenager, there would have been a distinct possibility that I might have smarted off. But, I wouldn’t have expected to be shot.”

— Rand Paul