Dirksen Quotes & Sayings

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money. — Everett Dirksen

Over the years, he [Everett Dirksen] developed a style of infinitely subtle fustian, whose effect can still be remotely approximated by sipping twelve-year-old bourbon, straight, while reading Dickens aloud, in a sort of sepulchral purr. — Lance Morrow

Dirksen's Three Laws of Politics: 1. Get elected. 2. Get re-elected. 3. Don't get mad, get even. — Everett Dirksen

When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there. — Everett Dirksen

We are becoming so accustomed to millions and billions of dollars that 'thousands' has almost passed out of the dictionary. — Everett Dirksen

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times. — Everett Dirksen

I am a man of principle, and one of my basic principles is flexibility. — Everett Dirksen

I am a man of principles, and my first principle is flexibility. — Everett Dirksen

We have been through this is biennial convulsion four or five different times over the past 10 or 12 years, and now it appears that we are going through this quiet agony all over again. — Everett Dirksen

[On Senator Everett Dirksen:] His great enemy was boredom and he won every engagement. — Mary McGrory

The oil can is mightier than the sword. — Everett Dirksen

There is no force so powerful as an idea whose time has come. — Everett Dirksen

The U.S. Senate - an old scow which doesn't move very fast, but never sinks. — Everett Dirksen

When a member of the House moves over to the Senate, he raises the IQ of both bodies. — Everett Dirksen

During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected. — Everett Dirksen

Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries. — Everett Dirksen

I have said, with respect to authorization bills, that I do not want the Congress or the country to commit fiscal suicide on the installment plan. — Everett Dirksen

Stronger than all the armies is an idea thats time has come ... The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here! — Everett Dirksen

When I feel the heat, I see the light. — Everett Dirksen

But the basic difficulty still remains: It is the expansion of Federal power, about which I wish to express my alarm. How easily we embrace such business. — Everett Dirksen

Whatever the color of a man's skin, we are all mankind. So every denial of freedom, of equal opportunity for a livelihood, or for an education, diminishes me. — Everett Dirksen

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion. — Everett Dirksen