Newt Gingrich Quotations | Page 2

I think he is one of the two greatest presidents of the 20th century, along with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ... He shaped both America and the world, and they are different places than they would have been without Ronald Reagan.

I think it would be more helpful now if they find a way to bring real movement. I think we need more than initiatives. We need steps to be taken.

My campaign could have paid the entire amount,

Most of the offices were surprised to learn about it when it was announced at the White House,

Well, it depends on whether the president instructs his staff to testify. It depends on whether the attitude is obstruction or the attitude is cooperation. And, I think at the moment we don't know what will happen.

We believe this is a bill that is going to get overwhelming support,

We believe there ought to be a tax cut for those who save, invest and create jobs. And I'm very prepared to take on any kind of class warfare argument,

We are committed to setting aside the 700 billion dollars in surplus for tax cuts, ... Having taken care of Social Security, we believe the extra money should go to tax cuts. Period.

You have to ask how much did they know, did they brief the administration on it and what were they doing? And then, second, you have to ask if you really want the kind of real time coverage that some people want, are you willing to pay for that level of asset and level of analysis? It's a very expensive proposition.

We probably should have almost maniacally focused on cutting taxes, reforming government, working on saving Social Security, recognize that would cause a big fight, accept that was a better fight for us than drifting into October with, as people kept saying, no national themes, no national dialogue,

There is a very big difference in where the two parties will take America, ... I sometimes get distressed by our friends in the media because they try to reduce everything to gossip, scandal-mongering and cynicism that I think is profoundly false for this country's future. There is an enormous difference in the two parties. We would go two very different places.

Traditional politics is dominated by and defended by a collection of elites who are deeply opposed to the solutions America needs to renew its civilization and ensure its economic and national security interests. These elites want a dramatically different world from the values and aspirations of most Americans.

We are mutually concerned about getting the peace process to continue to move forward, ... We also share a belief that prosperity is the key to long-term peace, and want to create more jobs in the Palestinian Authority's region.

The degree to which the conservative movement is dissatisfied is very real. Conservatism is at its biggest crossroads since Reagan was nominated in 1980.

We shouldn't go into one big liberal fantasy that only if we had the right bureaucracy of non-smoking with the right pamphlet, every 13-year-old in America would be convinced.

We owe the American people the right to know what happened. They have the right to know whether or not the American government was undermined by the Chinese.

We put science, and science and math education, second ... because we believe it's second only to the threat of a weapon of mass destruction (hitting) one of our cities,

We will do everything we can to find the money, not just for procurement but for training, for personnel and for the necessary power projection which is at the heart of America's ability to lead the world,

We think you can get a balanced budget and you can get a tax cut, ... We think both can be done this year, and we're trying to find a way to make sure that we have every opportunity to both balance the budget with smaller government, with reforms, and to have tax cuts for the American people.

We're not in a values fight now but over whether the system is working. The issue is delivery.

This will be the first time in 70 years that Republicans kept control of the House for a third term, ... We will gain seats this evening as the evening goes on.

Unequivocally, the House Republicans need to select a new majority leader in late January or early February.

Both parties have a great opportunity -- and a great risk. One of the two parties is going to be the party that brings the country into the 21st century . . . and you can't say today which party will win that battle.

We're talking with the administration, ... It seems to me possible that there could be an administration agreement to get to a balanced budget deal in the next couple of weeks.

We need to get the job done now, and I don't think anybody is better prepared to do that psychologically and otherwise than Rudy Giuliani,

We've had a bad three months, so it's a dangerous period for us, ... We have to change or we run the risk of defeat.

Tonight we have a simple choice, ... We can pass one of these substitutes and this agreement will have been crippled. And it will not pass the Senate and it will not be signed by the president.

We have a chance today to say to the world, no matter what our constitutional process, whether it is an election eve or it is the eve of a constitutional vote, no matter what our debates at home, we are as a nation prepared to lead the world,

This was such a stunning collapse of modern government that people understand that it's really not about personality,

We find ourselves where with a Democratic president and a Republican congress and we have an absolute moral obligation to make this system work.

We give him the benefit of the doubt because of his history as a credible guy. But to say there would be no hard feelings if he dumped a lot of questions and few answers on us would be an understatement.

We've reached many tentative possible agreements, none of which count until we've finished up the whole thing,

We thank the president for wishing to continue the dialogue on race last weekend, but frankly, there has been much talk on this issue and very little action of the sort which will dramatically change people's lives,

We're going to try to find everything we can to get the bill signed, and I have every reason to believe they'll be signed,

We have every reason to believe that this terrorist organization will try to hurt other Americans,

between those who would keep taxes higher on taxpayers to transfer the money to welfare recipients, and those of us who believe that after 16 years, it is actually time to have a bill dedicated to helping taxpayers and to giving mothers and fathers more take-home pay and resources to take care of their children.

Everyone should make up their own minds, ... important issues.

As speaker of the House, I have a national obligation to all my members to be in their districts and go out and spread the message,

Assuming that 1997 is a continuation of what he (Clinton) campaigned on this year, there's no reason that we can't find common ground.

Could it be possible that their bureaucrats don't have a clue about how the modern, instantaneous, real-time, worldwide money-markets work?

Do they understand that beyond getting past the unhappiness with this choice, there is a profound sense of discontent within the conservative movement?

Every year that we wait, the risk increases. I would hope that the administration would decide to do something decisive. . . . We have the military power in the region if we need it. It's a question of whether we have the will.

Isn't that the complete clear implication of that tape? And shouldn't somebody at the White House have a law enforcement responsibility to find out did the White House, in fact, threaten her job. Shouldn't that person be fired summarily?

I spent 40 years of my life getting us here, ... The idea that I would be the excuse to cannibalize the majority is so sickening I couldn't risk it.

I urge my colleagues to pick leaders who can both reconcile and discipline, who can work together and communicate effectively.

I urge Saddam Hussein to save the people of Iraq from violence, ... I urge him to take a step toward ultimately someday lifting the sanctions, I urge him to comply with United Nations resolution, and I want him to know that.

Sooner or later, I think that the public's right to know is more important than whether or not these people go to jail,

Sometimes I think if they offered more real leadership and less rhetoric, we'd get a lot more done,

President Mubarak has been a leader in trying to bring peace to the Middle East.

puts into question all of the Homeland Security and Northern Command planning for the last four years.

People can walk out, but what I'm saying is a fact about a crime,

draw a line in the sand and invite a veto.

Any effort to explain Iraq as 'We are on track and making progress' is nonsense. The left has a constant drumbeat that this is Vietnam and a bottomless pit. The daily and weekly casualties leave people feeling that things aren't going well.

Any effort to change the benefit pattern just virtually guarantees you can't get anything done, ... The Democrats and labor are putting together a massive campaign. If you give them a weapon that big, they're going to succeed.

And then we listen more and we say 'But why are you going to do this?' and we listen more and at some point, most of the members say, 'I don't want to talk any more. If I vote 'yes,' can I leave?' And it's a brutal system,

are really helping us make our case by drawing clearly the attention to the way in which they would write the tax cut bill so actually it is an increased welfare bill from their standpoint. We are directing the tax cuts to taxpayers.

As a test of the homeland security system, this was a failure, ... woefully inadequate.

As a test of the homeland security system, this was a failure. It's important for the president to lead the nation in saying -- and he has already said -- that this is unacceptable. This is not a moment to defend inadequacy. It's a moment to respond very aggressively to human suffering and establish a vision of a more secure, more prosperous Gulf Coast.

This is not because IRS employees are bad human beings or lazy human beings or stupid human beings; it is because they have been asked to manage and administer a tax code that has become impossible,

This is not one person doing one bad thing. You can't have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member (of Congress) or a corrupt staff. ... This was a team effort.

This is something you might have expected from John Mitchell in 1973,

This could end up being a very historic summer,

This is a crossroads for the Bush presidency. This is a very exciting period about what is effective government in the 21st century. Either he will be FDR and lead a dramatic change of government, or he will be defender of a failed system. The biggest political challenge for the next two years is to re-centre the government.

This is a crossroads for the Bush presidency, ... This is a very exciting period about what is effective government in the 21st century. Either he will be FDR and lead a dramatic change of government, or he will be defender of a failed system. The biggest political challenge for the next two years is to re-centre the government.

This is a critical intersection for the president and his ability to be effective for the next three years,

There was no finding by the committee that I purposely tried to deceive anyone,

This is the people's house, and I deplore the actions of the person who brought violence within these sacred halls.

This is the most important intersection of his presidency,

This is the most anti-openness group in the House ... they even have a problem getting together with their own caucus,

All of us who participated in the Contract with America were standing on Ronald Reagan's shoulders,

It's a remarkably conservative budget agreement to have with a liberal Democrat in the White House, ... From every reasonable standpoint, this is a budget that every conservative ought to vote for.

I totally underestimated the degree with which people just get sick of 24-hour-a-day talk television and talk radio, the degree to which this whole scandal just became sort of disgusting by sheer repetition,

It's not the absence of money, ... It is a failure of bureaucratic structures.

It's going to take exactly the same amount of energy. You are better off trying to get the largest possible account.

It's pretty hard to argue that the only team to have been successful in 70 years somehow ought to be replaced by somebody who has not ever won a nationwide election,

That is such a huge level of fraud and error and waste that we believe the (IRS) should be overhauled now,

It's impossible to defend something like this happening in America,

I want to get this bill signed, so for the first time in 16 years, the American people have a tax cut, but we're not going to give it up flippantly, we're going to work to keep it. I think the president has to look at what does he want. He's not going to get everything he wants; this is not a one-way street.

I try to avoid doing any business on the golf course, ... because my golf is so bad it might lead someone to try to take advantage of me on the grounds that my business sense must be as bad as my golf skills.

the U.S. leading the world by exercising its military power in an appropriate way.

As a citizen, my observation is if a independent counsel believes that by gathering evidence from people who were in casual social circumstances might unlock whether or not there was a criminal conspiracy, I think he should interview anybody he thinks is an appropriate witness,

The Cornerstone Community School provides hope and academic excellence to students in our area ... Newt and I are pleased to contribute to this effort.

I have people who come to this floor, who claim they represent the workers, who say they are for an international bank institution that is totally secret, that is run by a bureaucrat whose major policy is to raise taxes on workers in the Third World to pay off New York banks, ... Now that doesn't sound like populism to me.

In five or six days, I can meet more interesting people here than any place I know,

In Henry's case, it's human and it's personal and he's a decent and wonderful man, and many of you have known him over the years, ... And I think if you were to drop him a little note and let him know that you share his pain and you're sorry that doing his duty leads to that kind of treatment by this White House, I think he would be deeply grateful, because he's a wonderful person.

I'm not at all sure you can get to that this year and I'm not at all sure that it's a smart idea to try to get to that this year,

If the president is willing to sign a bill that has those reforms, which everybody agrees intellectually are needed in the long run, no one denies that we have to have some pretty basic reforms as people live longer and baby boomers head towards retirement, if he's willing to work with us, I think that we can get something done, but frankly he can kill that by simply indicating he won't support it, ... It's too difficult to carry reforms of that size against the president, so he has a unique burden of having to decide whether or not he can accept that.

If Saddam Hussein goes back on his word,

I frankly don't understand all of the things that happened yesterday, and I'm not sure anyone else in America does either,

If you go to Switzerland in winter, you should expect snow,

Instead of Theodore Roosevelt's 'talk softly and carry a big stick,' we have yelled and carried a toothpick, ... And what has happened? The people we are protecting are driven out or killed or raped, the people that are under the shelter of the U.S. are no longer in Kosovo.

I helped convince him to run (for Congress) ... when he was going to retire I helped make him Appropriations chairman,

I pledge right here working with the president that we will work in a bipartisan basis ... to enact in 1999 the right savings and the right steps to reform the system for the baby boomers and their children,

in 60 days they'd become slower and less competent.

Charter members contribute $10,000 per year and many ... are activists,

By the end of today, both presidential candidates will have taken steps of admitting that we have to have personal control of our retirement savings and then we have to move toward a new model to deal with the baby boomers and their children,

I figure when the steer wants to go somewhere, you get out of the way,

I don't think the Congress could move forward only on Lewinsky, unless he had such a clear case, such an overpowering case, ... But I think we would be better served to know the whole story.

I don't think anybody should be a distraction, ... I think the country is bigger than all of us.

How this president handles the Middle East in general and wins in Iraq in particular will be probably the most important definition of his presidency.