Quotes By George McGovern

I firmly believed throughout 1971 that the major hurdle to winning the presidency was winning the Democratic nomination. I believed that any reasonable Democrat would defeat President Nixon. I now think that no one could have defeated him in 1972.

I've enjoyed myself 90 percent of the time.

I'm constantly meeting people who said that they cast their first vote for me, or that they cut their eye teeth on the 1972 campaign, or that they didn't vote for me but admire my positions.

I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth with all the resources of mind and spirit I command.

I always thought of myself as a moderate liberal, a fighter for peace and justice. I never thought of myself as being all that far out.

I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie.

No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public.

For 50 years, the Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of being soft on national security.

Every once in a while, I run into somebody who tells me that she met her husband in my campaign or a husband who says, I met my wife. I have to tell you, I caused a few divorces too.

I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.

When I was a youngster growing up in South Dakota, we never referred to the national debt, it was always referred to as the war debt because it stemmed from World War I.

I move ahead, I live.

Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior.

At least I have precluded the possibility of peaking too early.

From secrecy and deception in high places, come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation, come home, America.

My heart does sometimes bleed for those who are hurting in my own country and abroad.

I think the country's getting disgusted with Washington partly because of the decline of civility in government.

The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.

You don't run for the presidency out of nostalgia.

It's nice not to have to worry about constituents.

As an American, I want our forces to prevail.

You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.

The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.

Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.

Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction 'Love the neighbor as thyself.'

Now, I simply do what I want.

I was tired. I hadn't slept eight hours in two, three years. I lived on four, five hours of sleep. You can do it during a campaign because thousands are screaming for you. You're getting adrenaline shots each day. Then the campaign ends, and there are no more shots.

I met my wife in South Dakota.

When I was in the war, I was lucky that I was in a plane and never saw the carnage close-up.