Marco Rubio Quotations

Leadership can not be measured in a poll or even in the result of an election. It can only be truly seen with the benefit of time. From the perspective of 20 years, not 20 days.

If you're the cashier at Burger King, of course you make less than the manager or even the CEO. The issue is whether you're stuck being a cashier for the rest of your life.

I'm proud of the fact that the Republican Party is the pro-life party on the issue of life.

My Dad used to tell us: 'En este pais, ustedes van a poder lograr todas las cosas que nosotros no pudimos' 'In this country, you will be able to accomplish all the things we never could.'

Conservatives aren't anti-immigrant - conservatives are pro-legal immigration.

The way to turn our economy around is not by making rich people poorer, it's by making poor people richer.

Conservatism is not about leaving people behind. Conservatism is about empowering people to catch up, to give them the tools at their disposable that make it possible for them to access all the hope, all the promise, all the opportunity that America offers. And our programs to help them should reflect that.

I'm going to be working the next 25 or 30 years. People like me, if we want, number one, for no benefit reductions for our parents and our grandparents, number two, for the system to survive and exist for us, and, more importantly, number three, for the system to exist for us children, we are going to have to make reforms to that system.

We're special because dreams that are impossible anywhere else, come true here. That's not just my story. That's your story. That's our story.

This is the only country in the world where today's employee, is tomorrow's employer.

I respect the rights of those who do not share my beliefs, but to teach my faith to my children and to share it with anyone who will listen - that is my right, too.

Big government helps the people who have made it. It doesn't help the people who are trying to make it; it crushes the people who are trying to make it.

Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it.

For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for.

With unemployment still abysmally high, the Obama economy is crushing Hispanics' dreams for their children to live a better life.

Supporting the definition of marriage as one man and one woman is not anti-gay: it is pro-traditional marriage. And if support for traditional marriage is bigotry, then Barack Obama was a bigot until just before the 2012 election.

Our national motto is 'In God we Trust,' reminding us that faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.

Climate is always evolving, and natural disaster have always existed.

These terrorists aren't trying to kill us because we offended them. They attack us because they want to impose their view of the world on as many people as they can, and America is standing in their way.

When was the last time you heard news accounts of a boatload of American refugees arrive on the shores of another country?

People have a right to be a Democrat. People have a right to be wrong. I know they're the same thing.

We should be the pro-legal immigration party. A party that has a positive platform and agenda on how we can create a legal immigration system that works for immigrants and works for America.

We focus so much on how immigrants can change America that we forget that America has always changed immigrants even more.

Every single one of us is the descendant of a go-getter. Of dreamers and of believers.

We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people that are gainfully employed, making money and paying into the tax system. And then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue and use it to pay down the debt and never grow it again.

My dad was a bartender. My mom was a cashier, a maid and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They were never rich. And yet they were successful. Because just a few decades removed from hopelessness, they made possible for us all the things that had been impossible for them.

We live in a society obsessed with public opinion. But leadership has never been about popularity.

The Second Amendment is a constitutional right. I didn't make it up, the Republican Party didn't make it up. It's in the Constitution. I think it's just as important as any of the other rights in our constitution.

You cannot give up on the American dream. We cannot allow our fears and our disappointments to lead us into silence and into inaction.

The American Dream is a term that is often used but also often misunderstood. It isn't really about becoming rich or famous. It is about things much simpler and more fundamental than that.

The second truism that we must understand is that poverty does not create our social problems, our social problems create our poverty.

It's easier to sell cotton candy than it is to sell broccoli to somebody, but the broccoli is better for you, and the same thing with a limited government.

America is not perfect. It took a bloody civil war to free over 4 million African Americans who lived enslaved. It took another hundred years after that before they achieved full equality under the law.

We are special because we've been united not by a common race or ethnicity. We're bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have.

No community values entrepreneurship and small business more than the Hispanic community.

Hope and Change has become Divide and Conquer

Big government doesn't help the middle class, it buries it.

How come liberals never admit that they're liberal? They've now come up with a new word called 'progressive,' which I thought was an insurance company but apparently it's a label.

I believe with all my heart that God still destines for us an even better future and the opportunity to continue to serve as an inspiration to the world.

This is the greatest society in all of human history, the greatest country ever. Many of the decisions being made in Washington today by both parties are threatening that greatness. And if we stay on this road we're on right now, our children are going to be the first Americans ever to inherit a diminished country.

What is the conservative movement? It's pretty straightforward. We believe that the way prosperity is created is when people have the freedom and the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

Never has the political class or the mainstream media that covers them been more out of touch with the American people than they are today.

We need to make sure our government programs encourage work, not dependence.

Americans chose a limited government that exists to protect our rights, not to grant them.

They made it to the middle class, my dad working as a bartender and my mother as a cashier and a maid. I didn't inherit any money from them. But I inherited something far better - the real opportunity to accomplish my dreams.

My parents were working class folks. My dad was a bartender for most of his life, my mom was a maid and a cashier and a stock clerk at WalMart. We were not people of financial means in terms of significant financial means. I always told them, 'I didn't always have what I wanted. I always had what I needed.' My parents always provided that.

Let us agree here today to adopt among ourselves a simple and unwritten rule. We will not rise to criticize someone else's idea unless we are prepared to offer an alternative idea of our own.

If I were running to be somebody, there are a lot of easier sombodies to be. After all, running against the incumbent governor of your own party in your home state is not the next logical step in a political life.

But here's what I would tell people of my generation. I turn 40 this year. There isn't going to be a Social Security. There isn't going to be a Medicare when you retire. Forget about what your benefit is going to look like. There isn't going to be one if we don't make some reforms to save that program now.

There is a role for government, but no matter how much money the government spends, it will never be able to take the place of parents and strong families.

When I'm president of the United States, we're going to have a VA that cares more about our veterans than about the bureaucrats who work at the VA.

We need to even out the tax code for small businesses so that we lower their tax rate to 25 percent, just as we need to lower it for all businesses.

I think there are some in the Democratic Party - not all - but I think there are some people in the Democratic Party that think that the immigration issue is more valuable to them unsolved. That it gives them something to talk about, that they can go back to Hispanic communities and make unrealistic promises every two years and win votes.

The reason why I'm here today is to explain why I am running and what I will do if you give me the honor and the privilege of representing you in the United States Senate. Now I'm running for the United State Senate for a simple reason, and that is...I want to win a Nobel Peace prize.

The Hispanic community understands the American Dream and have not forgotten what they were promised - that in the U.S., a free market system, allows us all to succeed economically, achieve stability and security for your family and leave your children better off than yourselves.

From tea parties to the election in Massachusetts, we are witnessing the single greatest political pushback in American history.

We cannot allow our fears and our disappointments to lead us into silence and into inaction. Because this country that God has blessed us with, it is worth fighting for.

And so, whether they came here on the Mayflower, on a slave ship, or on an airplane from Havana, we are all descendants of the men and women who built here the nation that saved the world.

Americans chose a free enterprise system designed to provide a quality of opportunity, not compel a quality of results. And that is why this is only place in the world where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home.

I think there are many in the Democratic Party that want immigration to be unsolved issue at least for the time being, because it's more useful as a campaign issue than it is as a solved issue.

That thought process that somehow other people have to be worse off in order for you to be better off does not work. People get on boats people jump fences to get away from that kind of thought process.

The vast majority of the American people are hard-working taxpayers who take responsibility for their families, go to work every day, they pay their mortgage on time, they volunteer in their community.

To tackle the big and relevant issues of the day with bold and innovative ideas is without question the most rewarding way to serve.

In America you have the right to worship any way you choose. That's why virtually every faith and every denomination on Earth has a presence in our land. You have a right to not believe in God at all.

Ultimately, your economy has to be measured in the real eyes of real people, not simply in statistics that appear in newspapers about the unemployment rate and so forth.

The vast majority of a significant portion of Americans of Hispanic descent will vote - happen to be working class people who are desperate to not only achieve the American dream but leave their kids better off than themselves.

Do not be afraid to offer ideas that draw opposition. Remember, if no one is against your idea, then your idea probably doesn't do anything.

Exile is not a time frame. Exile is an experience. It's a sentiment.

You know what the fastest growing religion in America is? Statism. The growing reliance on government.

I think there is a real misunderstanding about what the Tea Party movement is. The Tea Party movement is a sentiment in America that government is broken - both parties are to blame - and if we don't do something soon, this exceptional country will be lost, and it will become just like everybody else.

The No. 1 issue in the Hispanic American community is 'How do I leave my children better off than myself?

A sense that with the blessings that God bestowed upon this land, came the responsibility to make the world a better place.

We've never been people that go around and confront people that have been financially successful and say, 'We hate you. We envy you because of how well you're doing.'

As I've learned in my time in the state legislature, important legislation is always a work in progress.

Everything that I will ever accomplish, I owe to God, to my parent's sacrifices, and to the United States of America.

And I think for some - not all - but for some Democrats, the issue of immigration is better politically if they just leave it the way it is now because they can use it against Republicans.

And if we capture any of these ISIS killers alive, they are going to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and we're going to find out everything they know, because when I'm president, unlike Barack Obama, we will keep this country safe.

America is the story of everyday people who did extraordinary things. A story woven deep into the fabric of our society.

No economic system is perfect. But the American Free Enterprise system has empowered millions of people in the past. I know, because I saw it with my own eyes.

I don't ever remember them telling us or teaching us that the only way we could be more successful is if other people were less successful. They never inculcated the belief that somehow, in order for us to climb the ladder, other people have to come down from the ladder.

I would say to you that Americans of Hispanic descent want desperately to give their children the chances they never had.

If my house was on fire, I can't compromise about which part of the house I'm going to save. You save the whole house or it will all burn down. We either save this country or we do not.

A key part of your sovereignty is the ability to control the influx and outflow of your people and is the ability to secure your border.

Americans believe with all their heart, the vast majority of them, and the vast majority of Floridians, that the United States of America is simply the single greatest nation in all of human history.

Americans believe in the value of immigration. We are the most generous nation on earth to immigrants, allowing over one million people a year to come here legally.

And here's the fact: the fact is it doesn't solve the problem. First of all, if you taxed these people at 100 percent, basically next year you said, 'Look, every penny you make next year the government's going to take it from you,' it still doesn't solve the debt.

I challenge the Republican nominees and all Republicans to not just be the anti-illegal immigration party. That's not who we are and that's not who we should be we should be the pro-legal immigration party.

Anyone who doesn't agree with the Left's approach to immigration oftentimes gets stigmatized as anti-immigrant or anti-Hispanic.

The greatest thing that we can do for the world is be America.

We don't need a new idea; the idea is called America, and it still works.

People are frustrated. This is the most generous country in the world when it comes to immigration. There are a million people a year who legally immigrate to the United States, and people feel like we're being taken advantage of. We feel like despite our generosity, we're being taken advantage of.

We need to have a regulatory budget in America that limits the amount of regulations on our economy. We need to repeal and replace Obamacare and we need to improve higher education so that people can have access to the skills they need for 21st century jobs.

There are millions of women who are trapped in lower-paying jobs and don't have the skills for a higher-paying job, and don't have the money or the time to access the higher education that they need for a better job.

While Ebola's deadly reach has proven to be a complex and unique international challenge, the many uncertainties surrounding this virus continue to threaten U.S. national security.

The problem is that we are trying to prepare people for the new economy using a higher education system built for the old economy. As a result, many high-skilled, high-paying industries suffer from a shortage of labor, while too many low-paying industries suffer from a surplus.

Despite our differences, I know that both Republicans and Democrats love America.

Our problem with President Obama isn't that he's a bad person. By all accounts, he too is a good husband, and a good father - and thanks to lots of practice, a pretty good golfer.

I would love nothing more than compromise. But I would say to you that compromise that's not a solution is a waste of time.

You cannot do anything without God. It's a profound and elemental truth. Not, you cannot do most things without God. You will not be able to do anything that you want, truly, in fulfillment, without God.

Free enterprise makes people prosperous, all people prosperous, and big government makes people poorer.