Muskie Quotes & Sayings

In Maine we have a saying that there's no point in speaking unless you can improve on silence. — Edmund Muskie

Can we afford clean water? Can we afford rivers and lakes and streams and oceans which continue to make possible life on this planet? Can we afford life itself? Those questions were never asked as we destroyed the waters of our nation, and they deserve no answers as we finally move to restore and renew them. These questions answer themselves. — Edmund Muskie

You have the God-given right to kick the government around - don't hesitate to do so. — Edmund S. Muskie

The Republicans tend to choose the candidate who came in second place in the last election, and Democrats tend to move on. Ask President Ed Muskie how it worked out to be the front-runner. Ask President Howard Dean how it worked out. — Brian Schweitzer

It's funny. Of all the jobs I've been ambitious for, this is one that never crossed my mind. — Edmund S. Muskie

It is entirely conceivable - given the known effects of Ibogaine - that Muskie's brain was almost paralyzed by hallucinations at the time; that he looked out at that crowd and saw gila monsters instead of people, and that his mind snapped completely when he felt something large and apparently vicious clawing at his legs. We — Hunter S. Thompson

DENIAL OF EMOTIONS
Our culture does not handle emotions well. We like folks to be happy and fine. We learn rituals of acting happy and fine at an early age. I can remember many times telling people "I'm fine" when I felt like the world was caving in on me. I often think of Senator Muskie who cried on the campaign trail when running for president. From that moment on he was history. We don't want a president who has emotions. We would rather have one that can act! Emotions are certainly not acceptable in the workplace. True expression of any emotions that are not "positive" are met with disdain. — John Bradshaw

We have ignored this cancer for so long that the romance of environmental concern is already fading in the shadow of the grim realities of lakes, rivers and bays where all forms of life have been smothered by untreated wastes, and oceans which no longer provide us with food. — Edmund Muskie

Looking at yourself through the media is like looking at one of those rippled mirrors in an amusement park. — Edmund S. Muskie

In the heat of our campaigns, we have all become accustomed to a little anger and exaggeration. Yet, on the whole, our political process has served us well. — Edmund S. Muskie

McGovern is the only major candidate - including Lindsay and Muskie - who invariably gives a straight answer when people raise these questions. He lines out the painful truth, and his reward has been just about the same as that of any other politician who insists on telling the truth: He is mocked, vilified, ignored, and abandoned as a hopeless loser by even his good old buddies like Harold Hughes. On — Hunter S. Thompson

Incivility is a symptom, not the disease. We've always had partisan conflict in Congress, and we always will. Yet when I worked for a year (1970-71) on the staff of Sen. Ed Muskie of Maine, this was a different place, more collegial, more sensitive to data, more concerned about all of the American people. I think because the for-profit media prizes conflict above cooperation and sound bites above analysis, politicians have learned to adapt to those tendencies. Consequently, our public debates are dumbed down as our problems grow more complex. — Tom Allen

Somewhere along the line, it occurred to him that he hadn't spoken to Virgil Flowers. He'd probably taken the day off, and knowing Flowers, he'd done it in a boat. The thing about Flowers was, in Lucas's humble opinion, you could send him out for a loaf of bread and he'd find an illegal bread cartel smuggling in heroin-saturated wheat from Afghanistan. Either that, or he'd be fishing in a muskie tournament, on government time. You had to keep an eye on him. — John Sandford

I got a job with a law firm in Portland after a couple of years with Senator Muskie. But by then, my interest in politics had been sparked, through meeting Senator Muskie, through seeing what he did. — George J. Mitchell