Rand Paul Quotations

American inventiveness and the desire to build developed because we were guaranteed the right to own our success.

Does the owner of the restaurant own his restaurant? Or does the government own his restaurant?

I rode my bike to school every day from age five to age fourteen. It was a small town - you could go anywhere.

If I had been in President Obama's shoes, I would have acted more decisively and strongly against ISIS.

As president, I would promote a Fair and Flat Tax plan, known as the 'EZ Tax.' My tax plan would be the largest tax cut in American history, reforming individual, business, and worker taxes.

I don't want to live in a nanny state where people are telling me where I can go and what I can do.

I have a question, a question for the president: Do you hate all rich people, or just rich people who don't contribute to your campaign? Do you hate poor people or do you just hate poor people with jobs?

The Stamp Act was a direct tax imposed on the colonies by King George III. This act inevitably led to the American Revolution. Just as the Stamp Act did in 1765, Obamacare should act as a wake-up call. Chief Justice Roberts provides us with a similar call to action.

I have a message from the Tea Party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words. We've come to take our government back.

I believe we should work to end all racism in American society and staunchly defend the inherent rights of every person.

The great and abiding lesson of American history, particularly the cold war, is that the engine of capitalism, the individual, is mightier than any collective.

Some Libertarians argue that Western occupation fans the flames of radical Islam; I agree. But I don't agree that, absent Western occupation, that radical Islam 'goes quietly into that good night.'

I don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat, there is something profoundly un-American about using the brute force of government to bully someone.

The government has a history of not treating people fairly, from the internment of Japanese Americans in World War II to African-Americans in the Civil Rights era.

I support the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

How will we defend ourselves if the Patriot Act expires? Well, perhaps we could just rely on the Constitution and demonstrate exactly how traditional judicial warrants can gather all the info we need - and how bulk collection really hasn't worked.

We must always embrace individual liberty and enforce the constitutional rights of all Americans-rich and poor, immigrant and native, black and white.

You campaigned against rich people and you got enough envy whipped up in the country and you're gonna get 'em. You're gonna stick it to those rich people. But guess what? You may not get anymore revenue. You may not get anymore economic growth. But you can say, 'I stuck it to the rich people.'

You can't have it both ways. You can't tell me that you're taxed enough already, and that you want constitutional government and then in the next breath say, 'Bring me home some bacon.' The pig has been picked clean.

General Hayden knows full well the powerful and invasive nature of metadata.

Let's means-test benefits - let's means-test Social Security and Medicare and make the rich pay more for these benefits.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Many of those people deserve to be in prison; however, some of them do not.

I don't think you should have everybody's information from their bank. There should be some process: accusations and proof that you've committed a crime.

I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race.

If our freedom is taken, the American dream will wither and die.

Do we fear terrorism so much that we throw out our Constitution, and are we unwilling and afraid to debate our Constitution?

You know, you look at term limits, you poll term limits, 70, 80 percent of Republicans or Democrats are for it.

Foreign aid is not something the vast majority of Americans support, but definitely not conservatives.

What gets lost is that the Republican Party has always been the party of civil rights and voting rights.

If you hear me out, I believe you'll discover that what motivates me more than any other issue is the defense of everyone's rights.

As long as I sit at Henry Clay's desk, I will remember his lifelong desire to forge agreement, but I will also keep close to my heart the principled stand of his cousin, Cassius Clay, who refused to forsake the life of any human, simply to find agreement.

You know, when Republicans were in charge, we doubled the debt. But, now, our concern is the Democrats are in charge and they're tripling the debt. So, really, our concern is that we want smaller government.

Using taxes to punish the rich, in reality, punishes everyone because we are all interconnected. High taxes and excessive regulation and massive debt are not working.

I don't think I've ever used the word 'gay rights,' because I don't really believe in rights based on your behavior.

I think a policy of isolationism toward Cuba is misplaced and hasn't worked.

A free society will abide unofficial, private discrimination, even when that means allowing hate-filled groups to exclude people based on the color of their skin.

I've repeatedly voted for sanctions against Iran. And I think all options should be on the table to prevent them from having nuclear weapons.

We should revoke passports from any Americans or dual citizens who are fighting with ISIS.

In 1979, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 in Smith v. Maryland that a few days' worth of phone records for a single individual were not protected by the Fourth Amendment. The NSA today, though, collects hundreds of millions of phone records from hundreds of millions of Americans without an individualized warrant.

Washington has incentivized the militarization of local police precincts by using federal dollars to help municipal governments build what are essentially small armies - where police departments compete to acquire military gear that goes far beyond what most of Americans think of as law enforcement.

It is illegal for the CIA to spy on Americans and an affront to our Republic to spy on the Senate.

Of strong importance to me is the defense of minority rights, not just racial minorities, but ideological and religious minorities.

Mandatory minimum sentencing has disproportionately affected blacks, Hispanics and others who often don't have the financial means to fight back.

The Republican Party's history is rich and chock full of emancipation and black history.

Every child in every neighborhood, of every color, class and background, deserves a school that will help them succeed.

I grew up in a family that despised not only communism but collectivism, socialism, and any 'ism' that deprived the individual of his or her natural rights.

The history of African-American repression in this country rose from government-sanctioned racism. Jim Crow laws were a product of bigoted state and local governments.

Big and oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom, something black Americans know all too well.

You need to have people within your own party that have the wherewithal to stand up to you.

Each one of my budgets has taken a meat axe to foreign aid, because I think we ought to quit sending it to countries that hate us.

Even before ObamaCare, the government took care of the bottom 5 or 10 percent of the public who were on Medicaid.

I, for one, will remain constantly vigilant of a government that admits its transgressions of liberty only when they are caught lying.

It isn't hard to find injustice around us, but we must not let injustice smear the good deeds that do occur everyday.

We still need to be conscious of the fact that Russia has intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In America, as opposed to the old country, success was based on merit.

Throughout the 1970s, '80s and '90s, federal mandatory minimum laws were implemented that forced judges to deliver sentences far lengthier than they would have if allowed to use their own discretion. The result has been decades of damage, particularly to young people.

After all the sacrifice in Afghanistan and Iraq, why do we find ourselves in a more dangerous world?

The thing is I think vaccines are one of the greatest medical breakthroughs that we have. I'm a big fan and a great fan of the history of the development of the smallpox vaccine, for example.

The right to life is guaranteed to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence, and ensuring this is upheld is the Constitutional duty of all members of Congress.

America is a world leader, but we should not be its policeman or ATM.

I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.

I would argue that the objective evidence shows that big government is not a friend to African Americans.

The problem is that in our country, they make it almost impossible for politicians to win anything. In England it's easier to win a libel suit.

The Supreme Court must strike down the government's illegal spying program as a violation of our Fourth Amendment right to privacy.

The real debate is, when does life begin? When life begins, it deserves protection.

I've been fighting amidst a lot of opposition from both Hillary Clinton as well as some Republicans who wanted to send arms to the allies of ISIS. ISIS rides around in a billion dollars worth of U.S. Humvees. It's a disgrace. We've got to stop - we shouldn't fund our enemies, for goodness sakes.

There comes a time, in the history of Nations when fear and forgetfulness cause a nation to hesitate, to waver and perhaps even to succumb. When that time comes those who love liberty must rise to the occasion. Will you? Will you lovers of liberty, will you rise to the occasion?

I want to collect more records from terrorists, but less records from innocent Americans. The Fourth Amendment was what we fought the Revolution over! John Adams said it was the spark that led to our war for independence, and I'm proud of standing for the Bill of Rights, and I will continue to stand for the Bill of Rights.

I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form.

Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so.

Do you hate poor people or do you just hate poor people with jobs?

In our state, I'm really proud of the fact that the ones who overturned Jim Crow in Kentucky were Republicans fighting against an entirely unified Democrat Party. So I am proud to be Republican. I can't imagine being anything else.

I tell people I won't vote to go to war unless I'm ready to go or send my kids.

And when the time is right, I hope that African Americans will again look to the party of emancipation, civil liberty, and individual freedom.

I need to be very careful about going on certain networks that seem to have a bias.

Democrats in Louisville were led by Courier-Journal editor Henry Watterson and were implacably opposed to blacks voting.

I'm not someone who's sort of still trying to figure out what I believe in.

The power to tax and spend is restricted by the enumerated powers.

We as Republicans have taken the easy way out a lot of times.

We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punishes the black community.

Because Republicans believe that the federal government is limited in its function-some have concluded that Republicans are somehow inherently insensitive to minority rights. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Washington is horribly broken. We are encountering a day of reckoning and this movement, this Tea Party movement, is a message to Washington that we're unhappy and that we want things done differently.

I think what happened during the Great Depression was that African Americans understood that Republicans championed citizenship and voting rights but they became impatient for economic emancipation.

The Republican promise is for policies that create economic growth. Republicans believe lower taxes, less regulation, balanced budgets, a solvent Social Security and Medicare will stimulate economic growth.

What I've always said is that I'm opposed to institutional racism, and I would've, had I've been alive at the time, I think, had the courage to march with Martin Luther King to overturn institutional racism, and I see no place in our society for institutional racism.

What I say is, national defense is the most important thing we do in Washington, but there's still waste in the military budget.

For most of our history, no one dared to tell Americans, 'you don't build that.'

Just because a majority of the Supreme Court declares something to be 'constitutional' does not make it so.

All issues of crime are better addressed at the state level.

The Republican Party is an empty vessel unless we imbue it with values.

I think we need to treat everybody with dignity.

You shouldn't have one opinion when you're running and another when you're president.

I don't think I'm really open to having Washington change me.

I read all of Ayn Rand's novels when I was 17.

My great-grandfather, like many, came to this country in search of the American dream.

You don't go into politics unless you want to win.

No Republican questions or disputes civil rights. I have never wavered in my support for civil rights or the civil rights act.

Giving someone a one-time stimulus check, or a one-time tax cut that expires doesn't allow the predictability that business needs.

I think a lot of things could be handled locally.

I think that most manufacturing and mining should be under the purview of state authorities.