George McGovern Quotes

No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public.

The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.

The whole campaign was a tragic case of mistaken identity.

The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.

Im sick and tired of old men sitting around in air conditioned rooms here in Washington, dreaming up wars for young men to die in.

Above all, being a Democrat means having compassion for others. ... It means standing up for people who have been kept down.

Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.

It is not patriotic to commit young Americans to war unless our national security clearly requires it.

It's possible to dazzle a crowd if you really work at it. But that is no qualification for leadership. Hitler was a master of crowds.

I seek to call America home to those principles that gave us birth.

Every Senator in this Chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This Chamber reeks of blood.

So, I think that's the centerpiece of morality: Don't lie. But to do that, you have to go a step further and find out what the truth is.

When I was a youngster growing up in South Dakota, we never referred to the national debt, it was always referred to as the war debt because it stemmed from World War I.

My dad was a Methodist minister.

The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

Truth is a habit of integrity, not a strategy of politics.

I fully endorse the millennial goals to make (hunger) history, ... Those are big goals, but it's do-able.

Somehow politicians have become convinced that negative campaigning pays off in elections.

I hope someday we will be able to proclaim that we have banished hunger in the United States, and that we've been able to bring nutrition and health to the whole world.

When people ask if the United States can afford to place on trial the president, if the system can stand impeachment, my answer is, "Can we stand anything else?

I think the country's getting disgusted with Washington partly because of the decline of civility in government.

I am a liberal and always have been - just not the wild-eyed character the Republicans made me out to be.

I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket.

When I was in the war, I was lucky that I was in a plane and never saw the carnage close-up.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

I did frequently refer to my war record in World War II, but not in any flamboyant way.

I hope I live long enough to see every hungry school child in the world being fed under the so-called McGovern-Dole program.

From secrecy and deception in high places, come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation, come home, America.

I didn't know a damned thing about mental illness and neither did anyone around me.

I have a very deep concern about President Obama putting in another 21,000 troops into Afghanistan with the promise of more to come.

You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.

Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction 'Love the neighbor as thyself.'

Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.

One of the sharp parallels is that neither Vietnam nor Iraq was the slightest threat to America's national security.

I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

Don't throw away your conscience.

Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind.

The longer the title, the less important the job.

It would be a good time to replace the drug war with something more constructive. The cure offered the drug war today has probably been more harmful and done more damage than the disease.

I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.

I always thought of myself as a moderate liberal, a fighter for peace and justice. I never thought of myself as being all that far out.

If you're Iran's minister of defense, I think you'd try to develop at least one nuclear weapon to save yourself from what happened to Iraq.

I seek the presidency because I believe deeply in the American promise and can no longer accept the diminishing of that promise.

Every once in a while, I run into somebody who tells me that she met her husband in my campaign or a husband who says, I met my wife. I have to tell you, I caused a few divorces too.

Reaganism is not only at odds with the Judeo-Christian heritage, it will not work.

We have the resources (to end hunger), we know what has to be done, and it's something that can be achieved at a rather modest cost

I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie.

It can take greater courage to stand in opposition to the views of your neighbors or nation than to confront an enemy in combat.

My heart does sometimes bleed for those who are hurting in my own country and abroad.

I think it was my study of history that convinced me that the Democratic Party was more on the side of the average American.