United States Senate Quotes & Sayings

Guess what - I am one of the ONLY senators in the whole United States Senate that is computer literate! — Patty Murray

If I wanted to be president of the United States, I'd run for the Senate in 1986. And I'm just not going to do it. — Richard Lamm

The United States Senate wasn't designed to be a majority-rule institution. It was designed to include and accommodate the rights of the minority in small states as well as large states. — Olympia Snowe

When you work in the United States Senate, and you are around people of all different ideas and beliefs, you realize that what our Founding Fathers did that was so genius, is that they made the Senate the place where compromises are supposed to happen because of the makeup of the Senate. — Claire McCaskill

How many votes does it take to get the United States of America firmly into the legal nightmare described in Gabriel's Stand? Sixty seven plus five. That is two-thirds of the US Senate (the House need not be consulted) and a five vote majority on the Supreme Court.

If we ever do something so suicidally foolish we will not have lost a war - it will just feel like it. — Jay B. Gaskill

The House of Lords, architecturally, is a magnificent room, and the dignity, quiet, and repose of the scene made me unwillingly acknowledge that the Senate of the United States might possibly improve its manners. Perhaps in our desire for simplicity, absence of title, or badge of office we may have thrown over too much. — M. E. W. Sherwood

It would convert the Treasury of the United States into a manufactory of paper money. It makes the House of Representatives and the Senate, or the caucus of the party which happens to be in the majority, the absolute dictator of the financial and business affairs of this country. This scheme surpasses all the centralism and all the Caesarism that were ever charged upon the Republican party in the wildest days of the war or in the events growing out of the war. — James A. Garfield

If everybody is rewarded just for being alive, you get the same sort of effect as you do when you reward every student just for being enrolled. You destroy not only education, you destroy society by giving A's to everyone. This is a philosophical consideration that bothers me very much as I sit in the United States Senate and see the great budget allocations going through. — S.I. Hayakawa

1992 became known as the 'Year of the Woman' because so many of us were elected to public office that November, including a record six to the United States Senate. — Dee Dee Myers

I rise today to offer a formal and heartfelt apology to all the victims of lynching in our history, and for the failure of the United States Senate to take action when action was most needed. — George Allen

McCarthy himself said repeatedly to millions of Americans during the spring and summer of 1954, homosexuals represented a moral cancer that posed a security risk to the United States second only to the Communist Menace. "Better Dead Than Red"? Perhaps, but McCarthy's Senate Subcommittee on Investigations wasn't crazy about lavender, either; the specter of homosexuality was a frequent guest in the Senate's hearing rooms. — Glen Weldon

Now I have known Sen. Bill Frist, the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, since he was born. — John Jay Hooker

I will fight in the United States Senate this year to fund a servicing mission to Hubble by 2008, a mission that would potentially increase Hubble's power and efficiency by a factor of 10 and allow us to look back almost to the beginning of the universe. — Barbara Mikulski

Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot. — Joe Biden

The Congress of the United States, in recognition of the unique contribution of the Bible in shaping the history and character of this Nation, and so many of its citizens, has by Senate Joint Resolution 165 authorized and requested the President to designate the year 1983 as the 'Year of the Bible.' — Ronald Reagan

The American Senate remained focused on domestic priorities and thwarted all expansionist projects. It kept the army small (25,000 men) and the navy weak. Until 1890, the American army ranked fourteenth in the world, after Bulgaria's, and the American navy was smaller than Italy's even though America's industrial strength was thirteen times that of Italy. America did not participate in international conferences and was treated as a second-rank power. In 1880, when Turkey reduced its diplomatic establishment, it eliminated its embassies in Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States. At the same time, a German diplomat in Madrid offered to take a cut in salary rather than be posted to Washington.18 — Henry Kissinger

I've been a strong supporter of public financing my whole career. I'm the first guy to introduce a public financing bill to the United States Senate in 1973. — Joe Biden

I want to do my part in fighting for America's future. That's why I have decided to run for the United States Senate. — Sarah Steelman

We further decree that the Senate of the United States elect a prominent Democrat as their presiding officer, to act as President until the next election, and to reconstruct the Cabinet according to our wishes hereafter to be declared. — Joshua A. Norton

In the United States Senate, we cannot do great things without reaching across the aisle and working together - and I look forward to the challenges ahead. — Richard Burr

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation. — Will Rogers

My fervent expectation is that sooner rather than later, the United States Senate will more closely reflect the rich diversity of this great country. — Edward Brooke

Orrin Hatch is old enough to be my father, and I don't want my father running the United States Senate Finance Committee. — Scott Howell

Suppose, for instance, that the President of the United States has committed the crime of high treason; the House of Representatives impeaches him, and the Senate degrades him; he must then be tried by a jury, which alone can deprive him of his liberty or his life. — Alexis De Tocqueville

Others have said it before me. If you don't have a seat at the table, you're probably on the menu. And so it is important that we have women in the United States Senate - strong women, women who are there to help advance an agenda that is important to women. — Elizabeth Warren

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof. — John Adams

In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of a hundred in the United States Senate - and fortunately on matters of national security he was very often in the minority. — Dick Cheney

But when I look at the fact that today is 1,000 days that we have not had a budget for the United States of America, you know, the House, one of the things we did, we passed a budget last year. But that is still sitting over there at the Senate. And so we have got to get this country back on track. — Allen West

I've been challenged by the action-oriented approach to Scripture proposed by Peter Marshall, former chaplain of the United States Senate. I wonder what would happen if we all agreed to read one of the Gospels until we came to a place that told us to do something, then went out to do it, and only after we had done it, began reading again? There are aspects of the Gospel that are puzzling and difficult to understand. But our problems are not centered around the things we don't understand, but rather in the things we do understand, the things we could not possibly misunderstand. Our problem is not so much that we don't know what we should do. We know perfectly well, but we don't want to do it.19 — Mark Batterson

Mr. Gonzales' failure to respond to questions legitimately posed to him by the Senate raises grave doubts in my mind as to his fitness to serve the people of the United States as their Attorney General. — Daniel Inouye

It costs about $27 million to win a seat in the United States Senate, so when you win one, you like to sit down. — Arlen Specter

We must stop the Tea Party before the United States Senate falls into the hands of extremists and ideologues who leave no room for reason or compromise, who don't recognize common ground even when they're standing on it. — Harry Reid

Whereas, the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the Supreme Authority and just Government of Almighty God, in all the affairs of men and of nations, has, by a resolution, requested the President to designate and set apart a day for National prayer and humiliation ... — Abraham Lincoln

If the notion on this is we're going to elect somebody to the United States Senate so they can be the 100th least senior person in there and be polite, and somewhere in their fourth or fifth year do some bipartisan bill that nobody cares about, don't vote for me. — Elizabeth Warren

When I do my hiring in the United States Senate, I look at issues of diversity. — Cory Booker

I grew up in a family that nearly lost everything, but I ended up in the United States Senate because I grew up in an America that invested in kids like me and built a real future for us. — Elizabeth Warren

I will not seek reelection the United States Senate but will retire from public service in January 2013. There is no reason other than the fact than I think it's time. — Jon Kyl

If the Republicans get control back of the United States Senate, we will no longer have a check and balance on the White House, on the Republican Congress. — Patty Murray

I spent several years in a North Vietnamese prison camp, in the dark, fed with scraps. Do you think I want to do that all over again as vice president of the United States? ... The vice president has two duties: One is to break a tie in case of a tie vote in the United States Senate .. the other is to inquire daily as to the health of the president. Neither one of those are very challenging as compared with living a good part of time in the state of Arizona. — John McCain

Section 1. All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. — Founding Fathers

Go back to - my first campaign for the United States Senate. I got a bunch of people now talking about inequality. But back then they sure weren't. Back then, folks were saying I was preaching class warfare. Now it's suddenly their campaign platform. — Barack Obama

I believe the two biggest mistakes made by the Founders were giving Federal judges life-time appointments and permitting them to be confirmed without the agreement of two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate. — John Jay Hooker

Let the record show that you can be a United States senator for 21 years. You can be 79 years old. You can be the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and one of the most recognizable and widely-respected veteran public servants in your nation. But if you are female while all of those things, men who you defeat in arguments will still respond to you by calling you hysterical and telling you to calm down. They'll patronize you and say they admire your passion, 'sweetie,' but they deal in facts, not your silly, girly feelings. It's inescapable. You can set your watch by it. — Dianne Feinstein

you're worried about Congress being manipulated by money, the United States House of Representatives started filing their campaign contributions electronically a decade ago, yet the United States Senate refuses to do so. Year after year a bill is proposed, and one way or another it ends up suffocating and dying by the end of the session. This results in a half-million dollar expense to the taxpayer as the Federal Election Commission takes nearly three months to type in, from the various campaigns' paper reports, every campaign contribution that every Senate campaign receives. And as a result, we cannot see how a member of the United States Senate is being influenced by money until long after the time when the relevance of that information has passed. — Clay A. Johnson

It's important to remember that whatever the presidential candidates of either party say, they will have to interact with the United States Congress, particularly the Senate, when it comes to crafting policy. — Tom Cotton

The smartest person in the United States Senate, and he knows it, is John Sununu. Thank God he had his mother's temperament. — John McCain

The great majority of the Senate of the United States ... somewhere around 80 percent ... are completely in support of Israel, anything Israel wants. This has been demonstrated time and again, and this has made it difficult. — J. William Fulbright

From a policy point of view, I don't think it's the right approach. I don't like the idea of having millions of people here for their entire life without being able to assimilate into America ... From a political point of view, we've got 55 Democrats sent and a 72 percent support for a path to citizenship. It's just not practical to think we'll be able to pass any bill in the United States Senate without a path to citizenship. — Lindsey Graham

The bottom line is, there have been a lot of nuts elected to the United States Senate. — Chuck Grassley

If passed by the U.N. and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the U.N. Small Arms Treaty would almost certainly force the United States to ... create an international gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation. — Paul Broun

I would rather die than be in the United States Senate. I would be bored to death. Could you imagine me, banging around that chamber with 99 other people, asking for a motion on the amendment in the subcommittee? Forget it ... You'd watch me just walk out and walk right into the Potomac River and drown. That would be it. — Chris Christie

Let there be no reservation or doubt that I believe the Senate should vote on each and every judicial appointment made by the President of the United States and that no rule or procedure should ever stop the Senate from exercising its constitutional responsibility. — Johnny Isakson

I'm blessed to represent Florida in the United States Senate. — Marco Rubio

It is preposterous that the current members of the United States Senate and all of their predecessors for more than 200 years haven't been able to read the Constitution and do what it says. — John Jay Hooker

If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them ... 'Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in,' I would have done it. — Dianne Feinstein

There is a lot of fiscal conservatives in the United States senate that didn't vote for that because we understand that national security spending is not the reason why we have a debt. Our debt is being driven by the way Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and, by the way, the interest on the debt is structured in the years to come. — Marco Rubio

Charley Hapgood is what they call a rising young man - somebody told me as much. And it is true. He'll make the Governor's Chair before he dies, and, who knows? maybe the United States Senate." "What makes you think so?" Mrs. Morse had inquired. "I've heard him make a campaign speech. It was so cleverly stupid and unoriginal, and also so convincing, that the leaders cannot help but regard him as safe and sure, while his platitudes are so much like the platitudes of the average voter that - oh, well, you know you flatter any man by dressing up his own thoughts for him and presenting them to him. — Jack London

You can never solve a problem without talking to people with whom you disagree. The United States Senate is predicated and based on consensus building. That was certainly the vision of the founding fathers. — Olympia Snowe

You know, my name ... comes from the word shomer, guardian, watcher. My ancestors were guardians of the ghetto wall in Chortkov. And I believe Hashem [Orthodox for God] actually gave me that name. One of my roles, very important in the United States senate, is to be a shomer
to be a or the shomer Yisrael. And I will continue to be that with every bone in my body ... — Charles Schumer

We have huge national security issues in this country, and the United States Senate ought to be pushing President [Barack] Obama towards the proper policies that right now are a complete disaster based on his policies. — Jeb Bush

Violence is a problem we all want to solve. I want to make sure that kids learn to deal with anger by learning how to talk with people to solve problems. Here in the United States Senate I want to make sure we have safe schools, safe neighborhoods and good things for kids to do after school! — Patty Murray

For years, I declined to fill in the form for my Senate press credential that asked me to state my 'race,' unless I was permitted to put 'human.' The form had to be completed under penalty of perjury, so I could not in conscience put 'white,' which is not even a color let alone a 'race,' and I sternly declined to put 'Caucasian,' which is an exploded term from a discredited ethnology. Surely the essential and unarguable core of King's campaign was the insistence that pigmentation was a false measure: a false measure of mankind (yes, mankind) and an inheritance from a time of great ignorance and stupidity and cruelty, when one drop of blood could make you 'black. — Christopher Hitchens

To those who will decide if he should be tried for 'high crimes and misdemeanors' -the House of Representatives-
And to those who would sit in judgment at such a trial if the House impeaches -the Senate-
And to the man who would preside at such an impeachment trial -the Chief Justice of the United States, Warren Burger-
And to the nation ...
The President said, 'I want you to know that I have no intention whatever of ever walking away from the job that the American people elected me to do for the people of the United States.'
- Carl Bernstein, Bob Woodward — Carl Bernstein

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that. And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there's a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit. The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. — Joe Biden

Women are beginning to feel that they are not fairly represented. As we say, 2% may be fine for fat in milk, but not for the United States Senate. — Dianne Feinstein

Israel controls the United States Senate. — J. William Fulbright

For most governors, we find the United States Senate or the United States Congress very frustrating at the slow pace in which they act. There doesn't seem to be a lot of discipline and organization to what they do. — Dave Heineman

I think if progressives stay at this, continue at the grassroots level to make the case that all Americans should have choice, all Americans ought to be able to hold insurance companies accountable, I think we will have 60 votes in the United States Senate for a strong bill. — Ron Wyden

Nobody is going to give away the farm in Kyoto. It is not anybody's to give away. And even if the United States Senate would actually ratify a bad treaty, anything called for under the treaty would require legislation passed through both houses. — Thomas Schelling

What is the purpose of public service? It's to solve problems for the people you represent and certainly in the United States Senate, thinking about your state and thinking about your country as well. — Olympia Snowe

I do think the most important thing we need in leadership in our country, not just in the presidency but in the United States Senate, are people that have a clear vision of what the role of government should be in our lives and what the role of America should be in the world. — Marco Rubio

The country is facing a fiscal crisis, and the United States Senate is at the center of the debate about how to bring federal spending under control. — Jeff Flake

The Constitution makes very clear what the obligation of the United States Senate is and what the obligation of the president of the United States is. To allow a Supreme Court position to remain vacant for well over a year cuts against what I think the intentions of the framers are and what the traditions of the Senate and the executive are. — Cory Booker

Lyndon Johnson, as majority leader of the United States Senate, he made the Senate work. — Robert Caro

The Frankenstein of Communism is the product of the Jewish mind, and was turned loose upon the world by the son of a Rabbi, Karl Marx, in the hopes of destroying Christian civilization - as well as others. The testimony given before the Senate of the United States which is take from the many pages of the Overman Report, reveals beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jewish bankers financed the Russian Revolution. — Kenneth Goff

In May, when a Senate committee took up the explosive issue of titles, Adams suggested that Washington be addressed as "His Highness, the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties."34 Adams provided fodder for contemporary wags and was promptly dubbed "His Rotundity" or the "Duke of Braintree. — Ron Chernow

Surely the United States Senate is big enough to take self-criticism and self-appraisal. Surely we should be able to take the same kind of character attacks that we "dish out" to outsiders. — Margaret Chase Smith

I want to say that further you are not a great chief of this country. That you have no following, no power, no control." Logan continued, "You are on an Indian reservation merely at the sufferance of the government. You are fed by the government, clothed by the government, your children are educated by the government, and all you have and are today is because of the government. If it were not for the government you would be freezing and starving today in the mountains. I merely say these things to notify you that you cannot insult the people of the United States of America or its committees ... the government feeds and clothes and educates your children now, and desires to teach you to become farmers, and to civilize you, and make you as white men.
-Senator John Logan, 1883 — Dee Brown

A telling example of what it has all come to can be found in the person of Rick Santorum, the junior Republican senator from Pennsylvania. Elected to the House in 1990 and then the Senate in 1994, Santorum, forty, is the apotheosis of the brash newer member who imposes himself on the working order of the Senate, demonstrates little respect for the institution, becomes a one-man ideological enforcer, and brings down the level of civility. Toothy, with a shock of dark hair, Santorum looks the perfect pol for the television age. Unburdened by brilliance, he makes his impact through pestiferousness. — Elizabeth Drew

Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I've had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her. — John McCain

Not to dampen any parade, but if one asks if there is a single thing about Mr. Obama's Senate record, or state legislature record, or current program, that could possibly justify his claim to the presidency one gets ... what? Not much. Similarly lightweight unqualified 'white' candidates have overcome this objection, to be sure, but what kind of standard is that? — Christopher Hitchens

I've got the best job in the world being a senator from the United States, a senator from South Carolina in the United States Senate, representing South Carolina in the United States Senate is a dream job for me, but the world is literally falling apart. And we can't get anything done here at home. So that drives my thinking more than anything else. — Lindsey Graham

Woodrow Wilson, for example, shortly before his death, buffeted by the Senate in his efforts on behalf of the League of Nations and the Versailles Treaty, rejected the suggestion that he seek a seat in the Senate from New Jersey, stating: "Outside of the United States, the Senate does not amount to a damn. And inside the United States the Senate is mostly despised; they haven't had a thought down there in fifty years." There are many who agreed with Wilson in 1920, and some who might agree with those sentiments today. But — John F. Kennedy

Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words 'in the United States and' after 'appropriate force' in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas-where we all understood he wanted authority to act-but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused. — Tom Daschle

I am extremely privileged to serve Rhode Island in the United States Senate, and that is my only goal and aspiration. — Jack Reed

I will not be responsible for the loss of the Democratic majority in the United States Senate. — Robert Torricelli

Class consciousness is not one of our national diseases; we suffer, indeed, from its opposite
the delusion that class barriers are not real. That delusion reveals itself in many forms, some of them as beautiful as a glass eye. One is the Liberal doctrine that a prairie demagogue promoted to the United States Senate will instantly show all the sagacity of a Metternich ... another is the doctrine that a moron
run through a university and decorated with a Ph.D. will cease thereby to be a moron ... — H.L. Mencken

George W. Bush, 43rd president of the United States, became the first incumbent president to increase his majority in both the Senate and the House and to increase his own vote (by over 3.5 million) since Franklin D. Roosevelt, political genius of the 20th century, in 1936. — Peggy Noonan

I e-mailed every representative and senator in the United States Congress and told them about what happened to you. I've been absolutely raising hell." "Every member of the US Congress? How many is that?" "Four hundred and thirty-five in the House and a hundred in the Senate. Took me a long time." "You're — Scott Pratt

It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There's a lot of
I don't know what the term is in Austrian, wheeling and dealing."
confusing German for "Austrian," a language which does not exist, Strasbourg, France, April 6, 2009 — Barack Obama

He took pride in belonging to the world's most exclusive club: the United States Senate. — Margaret Truman

Serving in the United States Senate has been the greatest privilege of my life. — Dean Heller

When his nomination comes before the United States Senate, Timothy Batten can count on my strong support ... He is the right person for the job. — Saxby Chambliss

I think it's one thing to be part of a very important group called the Senate of the United States and cast a vote. You're one of 100. I think it says even more to be a governor, where you ultimately have that political responsibility and accountability to succeed. — Tom Ridge

I worry that the Senate is working to consider a series of little-noticed provisions in comprehensive immigration reform that may provide a pathway to a national ID card for all individuals present in the United States - citizens and noncitizens, — Rand Paul

I saw no unity of purpose, no consensus on matters of philosophy or history or law. The very facts were shrouded in uncertainty: Was it a civil war? A war of national liberation or simple aggression? Who started it, and when, and why? What really happened to the USS Maddox on that dark night in the Gulf of Tonkin? Was Ho Chi Minh a Communist stooge, or a nationalist savior, or both, or neither? What about the Geneva Accords? What about SEATO and the Cold War? What about dominoes? America was divided on these and a thousand other issues, and the debate had spilled out across the floor of the United States Senate and into the streets, and smart men in pinstripes could not agree on even the most fundamental matters of public policy. The only certainty that summer was moral confusion. — Tim O'Brien

One hundred thousand dollars was the bridge that enabled me to go on TV, not miss a beat or miss an opportunity, and raise then my own money to carry me forth. And that's how I got to be the first Democratic woman in the United States Senate's history. — Barbara Mikulski

The real con artist is Senator Marco Rubio.Who was elected in Florida and who has the worst voting record in the United States Senate. He doesn't go to vote. He's absent. — Donald Trump

Riveted by these events, reporters gave little thought to the hearings taking place that afternoon in Room 424 of the Senate Office Building, where a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee sat to consider a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States. If passed, it would have declared, "This Nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of Jesus Christ, Saviour and Ruler of nations through whom are bestowed the blessings of Almighty God."1 The campaign — Kevin M. Kruse

I have a very strong record on the Environment in the United States Senate. — Dan Quayle