Great Throughts Treasury

"There will be no veterans of World War III."

"Bill Proxmire represents almost the last of one of America's most remarkable generations."

"At least when Ronald Reagan rode off in the movies into the fiery sunset, he didn't take us with him"

"He of course will be remembered above all for his challenge to the Vietnam War when he ran for president ... and I think helped bring the war to an end."

"I know the rules. I know how to get things done there."

"By instinct and tradition, I don't like the thing. I like to look someone in the eye."

"Do you want to tear your life apart and get rid of everything you've known as a lifestyle? Like seeing your family? Being with your friends? A fishing trip? A hunting trip? A night's sleep?"

"I will fight, as I always have, for minorities of all races and religions and sexual orientation who deserve to share in the fullness of American life."

"I'm asking you now one more time to give it all you got and give in that extra edge and get the people out and let's set America on a solid future."

"I think he did challenge the Democrats, unlike any modern Republican presidential candidate, on the question of the basic direction of American government, particularly as it dealt with domestic policies and domestic economics, ... And it did shift the grounds of the debate."

"If you are sure you understand everything that is going on, you are hopelessly confused."

"Mr. Reagan will raise taxes; and so will I. He won't tell you. I just did."

"In our system, at about 11:30 on election night, they just push you off the edge of the cliff - and that's it. You might scream on the way down, but you're going to hit the bottom, and you're not going to be in elective office."

"Modern politics today requires a mastery of television. I've never really warmed up to television and, in fairness to television, it's never warmed up to me."

"I've traveled more this year than any other living human being, and if I'd traveled any more I wouldn't be living."

"Political image is like mixing cement. When it's wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there's almost nothing you can do to reshape it."

"Remember... you have six years in the first term, not six days. Don't be so impatient, charging into everything."

"Running for President is physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually the most demanding single undertaking I can envisage unless it's World War III."

"That's the course that the first President Bush took in the Gulf War, and that's where Paul Wellstone stood, and that's where I will stand in the United States Senate."

"We were marginalized in the public eye as a presidential party. What Clinton did is an enormous accomplishment. I myself even wondered if we'd do it again."

"We don't go it alone. We go with everybody."

"Who is ready to be a truly independent representative of Minnesota? Who is free of entangling alliances and big money that allows them to represent? What do we need -- that sort of person who can truly independently represent Minnesota, or something else?"

"What do we want our kids to do? Sweep up around Japanese computers?"

"We have a lot of problems confronting our nation: the possibility of war, the growing threat in Korea, a serious threat of terrorism clearly around."

"A lot of people say `How's your dad?' A lot of people say I look like him,"

"I said I didn't want to spend most of my life in Holidays Inns, but I've checked and they've all been redecorated. They're marvelous places to stay and I've thought it over and that's where I'd like to be."

"I understand that by a close vote, you have nominated me to run for the U.S. Senate, and I want you to know I gladly accept the nomination,"

"I'm asking for your help to build a future that Paul Wellstone would have liked to have seen."

"We knew we had a really strong leader in Bill. We wanted to keep him and help him with incentives."

"When I hear your new ideas I'm reminded of that ad, 'Where's the beef?"

"We had that sort of common-roots background, ... He's from Blue Earth, Minnesota, and I'm from Elmore, Minnesota, two little towns on the Iowa border. ... I had seen him operate for many years as a journalist. I knew he was good and I knew reporters respected him, which is a big thing in that job."

"We will win! We will win!"

"You have got to be careful quoting Ronald Reagan, because when you quote him accurately it is called mudslinging."