Honest businessmen should be protected from the unscrupulous consumer. - Lester Maddox, then governor of Georgia, on why his state should not create a consumer protection agency
Capital punishment is our society’s recognition of the sanctity of human life. - Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah
I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change. - Vice-President Dan Quayle
I think that the undecideds could go one way or the other. - George Bush, 1988
I'm not against the blacks, and a lot of the good blacks will attest to that. - Evan Mecham, former governor of Arizona
Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country. - Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, D.C.
I did what any normal person would do at that age. You call home. You call home to mother and father and say, "I'd like to get into the National Guard." - Dan Quayle
I didn't inhale. - Presidential candidate Bill Clinton
I was not lying. I said things that later on seemed to be untrue. - Richard Nixon, discussing Watergate in 1978
I love California. I grew up in Phoenix. - Vice-President Dan Quayle
Facts are stupid things. - Ronald Reagan
I stand by all the misstatements. - Dan Quayle, defending his verbal gaffes
Where would Christianity be if Jesus got eight to fifteen years, with time off for good behavior? - New York Senator James H. Donovan commenting on capital punishment
If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. - Senior Pentagon official, explaining why the U.S. military censored footage showing Iraqi soldiers sliced in two by U.S. helicopter fire
They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist- - Last words of Union commander General John Sedgwick, spoken as he was watching enemy troops at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind. - General William Westmoreland on why the media should be controlled in wartime
Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway. - Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on Chlordane
I have no weakness for shoes. I wear very simple shoes which are pump shoes. It is not one of my weaknesses. - Imelda Marcos, owner of 3,400 pairs of shoes
Giving money and power to Government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J. O'Rourke
While you are away, movie stars are taking your women. Robert Redford is dating your girlfriend, Tom Selleck is kissing your lady, Bart Simpson is making love to your wife. - Clueless Iraqi radio announcer, Baghdad Betty, trying to demoralize our Gulf War troops.
You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing, it's air support. - Air Force Colonel David Opfer, complaining to reporters about their coverage of the Vietnam War
Don't be humble. You're not that great. - Golda Meir
It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by resorting to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry. - H. L. Mencken
We may be finding that in some blacks, when the choke hold is applied, the veins or arteries do not open up like in normal people. - Daryl Gates, former L.A. police chief
Casual drug users should be taken out and shot. - Daryl Gates, former L.A. police chief
Who ever heard of Casablanca? I don't want to star opposite some unknown Swedish broad. - George Raft, on the role of Rick in Casablanca
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own. - Aristotle
Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life. - Brooke Shields, actress
It is more profitable for your congressman to support the tobacco industry than your life. - Jackie Mason
Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave. - Ad slogan "Pepsi comes alive" as initially translated into Chinese