Rick Santorum Quotations

I'll never forget the first time I saw someone who had died. It was my grandfather. And I knelt next to his coffin. And all I could do was eye level was look at his hands. They were enormous hands. And all I could think was, 'Those hands dug freedom for me.'

My view is the less the government can do and the more freedom and opportunity you give people, that trusting people and free people and free enterprise - that America has built the greatest country in the history of the world.

You can't ignore the reality that faith and family, those two things are integral parts of having limited government, lower taxes, and free societies.

The more moral the people are in their business dealings, the less paperwork you need, the more handshakes you can have, the more the wheels of capitalism work better because there's trust in the marketplace. Business ethics is not a joke. And, in fact, I think most businesses that I've dealt with encourage exactly that type of behavior.

It's very interesting, if you look at a study that was done by the Brookings Institute back in 2009, they determined that if Americans do three things, they can avoid poverty. Three things. Work, graduate from high school, and get married before you have children.

Watching President Obama apologize last week for America's arrogance - before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans - helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions.

The government has convinced parents that at some point it's no longer their responsibility. And in fact, they force them, in many respects, to turn their children over to the public education system and wrest control from them and block them out of participation of that. That has to change or education will not improve in this country.

If all you think we need to do to get this economy going and get this country on the right track is to cut government and reduce taxes, you don't understand America. America is a moral enterprise, not an economic enterprise.

One of the things that I realize is that if you look at big business, I mean, they - and what they fund and what they do, they don't really - they don't fund the small non-profit community-based organizations that really are out there on the front lines helping people. They fund the big philanthropies. They're safe.

I love it when the left and when the president say, 'Don't try to impose your values on us, you folks who hold your Bibles in your hand and cling to your guns.' They have values too. Our values are based on religion, based on life. Their values are based on a religion of self.

The more money you take away from families is the less power that family has. And that's a basic power.

Isn't that the ultimate homeland security, standing up and defending marriage?

The Obama administration now has regulations that tells them that they can no longer promote marriage to these young girls. They can no longer promote marriage as a way of avoiding poverty and bad choices that they make in their life. They can no longer even teach abstinence education. They have to be neutral with respect to how people behave.

America's honor, your honor is at stake. Go out and preserve the greatest country in the history of the world.

The problem is neutrality ends in poverty, neutrality ends in choices that hurt people's lives. This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is. That is absolutely unconscionable.

I don't think most people understand that when I wasn't running for president, I was working. Because I have to earn income. I have three kids in college. And three in school. And I have a little girl that has a lot of special needs. So I've got to work for a living. I was working already.

Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that's what? Children. Monogamous relationships.

My work with Patriot Voices actually dovetails very well into the work I'm going to be doing with EchoLight. I'll be traveling around the country, doing a lot of radio interviews, a lot of media interviews, so I don't see that as all inconsistent.

I'm always told that what I say is controversial. Why is it controversial? Because I speak from a tradition that has now fallen out of favor with the dominant media in this country. And so when I say things like marriage should be between one man and one woman, I'm called a bigot.

You can't have a limited government if the family breaks down.

I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

I believe in capitalism for everybody, not necessarily high finance but capitalism that works for the working men and women of this country who are out there paddling alone in America right now.

I think I'm the best candidate not just to beat President Obama, but to do what is necessary to get this country going, a conviction conservative who can rally the American public around a common set of values.

I mean the fact is that some of this information that we have found out that led to Usama bin Laden actually came from these enhanced interrogation techniques.

Capitalism actually encourages morality because capitalism can't function well if people can't trust each other and people aren't honest, if a deal isn't a deal.

NASCAR and the Daytona 500 are about as American as you can get.

President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob.

When I say things like 'Marriage should be between one man and one woman,' I'm called a bigot.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that.

As the Wall Street Journal called our economic plan, supply-side economics for the working man, is resonating in Minnesota and here in Missouri and across this country.

What we should be teaching are the problems and holes and I think there are legitimate problems and holes in the theory of evolution. And what we need to do is to present those fairly from a scientific point of view. And we should lay out areas in which the evidence supports evolution and the areas in the evidence that does not.

Who are benefits promised to, overwhelmingly? Well, they're promised to older people. And if you have a society like Europe that is upside down where there are a lot more older people than younger people, you have economic calamity.

Defend the church. Defend the family. Defend the non-profit community. Defend them against a government that wants to weaken them.

I do care about not 99 percent or 95 percent. I care about the very rich and the very poor. I care about 100 percent of America.

I think there are a lot of successful people in this country who connect amazingly well with the American people and have - and one of the reasons they are successful is because they connect well.

I watch the Food Network with my kids. We - yeah, I - I - I generally don't admit that, but I love cooking.

I'm someone who believes that making things creates wealth.

Saddam Hussein was not an Islamist. He's not a radical jihadist. He's not a radical Muslim. I mean, he was a - he was a Baathist. He was a secular - even though he professed to be a good and devout Muslim.

The family is the first economy. If the family breaks down, well, government gets bigger because of the consequences of family breakdown. We see in the neighborhoods where there are no marriages and there are no two-parent families.

What makes America great was a government that was founded to be limited to doing one thing. I really believe the whole purpose of America, the aspirational value - why everybody who wants to come to this country wants to come here - was because we respected the dignity of every living person.

If the most liberal man that's ever been in office can get elected when 20 percent of the population identifies as liberal then I think we can elect a conservative when 40 percent of the population identifies themselves as conservative.

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love.

People of faith, people of no faith, people of different faith, that's what America is all about; it's bringing that diversity into and challenge of the different ideas that motivate people in our country. That's what makes America work.

I have nothing, absolutely nothing against anyone who's homosexual. If that's their orientation, then I accept that. And I have no problem with someone who has other orientations.

If you look at the big entertainment industry and their pursuit of the bottom line profits in exchange for producing content and distributing that content and marketing that content to inappropriate audiences, that's a problem for me.

In 2006 it was a horrible election year, and, you know, I lost. But I lost because I continued to be a constant conservative, and the last six years I was someone who was a national figure in the sense that I was the third ranking Republican in leadership and I had just run President Bush's campaign in Pennsylvania.

Look at the political base of the Democratic Party: It is single mothers who run a household. Why? Because it's so tough economically that they look to the government for help and therefore they're going to vote. So if you want to reduce the Democratic advantage, what you want to do is build two parent families, you eliminate that desire for government.

Marriage is an institution that existed before governments existed. It's something that reflects nature and reflects God and God's will for us. And both from the standpoint of faith and reason it makes all the sense in the world. And it's beneficial for society.

Candidly, I believe most corporations actually don't mind big government.

My feeling is, well, if it's my money, I have a right to judge.

My mom was a working woman. She made more money than my dad. Both my parents worked. And this was in the '60s.

Newt Gingrich would be a much better president than Barack Obama.

There are certain skills that business people have that are - that are, in fact, helpful in - when it comes to being in political leadership.

There are conservatives in Hollywood who make good movies. They just don't make conservative movies because that's not what gets funded.

The decision he made with Usama bin Laden was a tactical decision. It wasn't a strategic decision. The strategic decision was made by President Bush to go after him. What President Obama has done on his watch, the issues that have come up while he's been president, he's gotten it wrong strategically every single time.

But look what happens when the government gives you rights. When the government gives you rights, unlike when God gives you rights, the government can take them away. When government gives you rights, the government can tell you how to exercise those rights.

The president of the United States is a commander-in-chief, and the president of the United States, you know, executes the laws and tries to motivate the American public to make changes that are necessary. It's not necessarily a CEO type of position.

But the reason America is a great country, the reason is because our compassion is in our laws. And when we live by those laws and we treat everybody equally under the law, that's when people feel good about being Americans.

I have lots of favorites movies. I say this only because it's a favorite movie because it's a sport I love. I'm a huge baseball fan. There are movies I like as much as this, but I sort of single this movie out because I'm a baseball nut, and that's 'Field of Dreams.'

I looked at No Child Left Behind after it was enacted and saw what happened and saw the expansion of the federal government and the role of education. And I said, you know, that was - that's not what I believe in.

There is a difference between legitimate issues of character - someone's behavior - and the issue of whether someone who has done something wrong in their life, now because of those mistakes, can't talk about what is the right thing to do.

We had 90 percent rates, but nobody paid them. And so you had all these exemptions, exclusions, shelters, all this kind of stuff. And that's why most Americans are saying, 'Look, let's just be honest. Let's have lower rates, but everybody pays them.'

We're in the process right now of judges and vigilantes -- people taking justice into their own hands and deciding to change the law without either the courts or the legislature acting.

We were in error. Sen. Murray was right.

We really have an obligation to keep our eye on the ball here, ... The ball is helping those, the needy, in our society.

We did our job well and everyone knows it. By falsely claiming that we got it wrong, Rick Santorum is continuing his misguided crusade against the National Weather Service.

We have just in Pennsylvania alone, 300 years worth of coal sitting in the ground that we aren't really utilizing now because of concern for the environment, and it's a legitimate concern, but one that we can overcome,

Sen. Daschle has just said 'no,' ... He has repeatedly said 'no, no, no' to a bill that has bipartisan support, that the president has asked for time and time again, and that the American people overwhelmingly support.

My feeling on the nominee is I don't know much about her,

One piece of paper ... doesn't tell me a whole lot,

One of the big concerns here in Clarion is economic development,

Rick wouldn't be the guy dating the senior queen. But he was probably friends with her.

I don't know yet, ... But I am concerned President Bush nominated someone who is a blank slate. I'm disappointed he wanted to nominate someone like that instead of someone with a record.

Carnegie Mellon's ... effort will, for the first time, establish a public-private partnership that will help safeguard our national security,

I make the argument, I got hammered for this, that parents should actually consider spending less time at work and more time with their families, ... ... I'll take the hit for saying parents need to parent.

If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery, ... You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does.

He has quite an admirable record of race relations in Mississippi and got the unanimous support of the African-American community in Mississippi, including the NAACP.

I think what we've learned is that there's still a simmering problem in America when it comes to race, and that the solutions that we've had to try to deal with the problem in the past have really not solved that problem, ... Face the Nation.

I think it was a consensus among members of Congress, and I think the president is receptive to the idea.

I will fight it in public and I will fight it in private.

People know what I stand for and why I stand for it, ... I don't think that's the case with my opponent.

Look, I am seeking my party's Whip position. Would I take that job then leave my party in the lurch by running for President?

I think he set a great standard going forward for judicial nominees, as to laying out the proper role of the court. That's one of the things I think we've lost. We've gotten into this battle, we want a liberal or a conservative. No, what we want is someone who decides the case before them as narrowly as possible.

I think I would probably tailor that a little more than what the president has suggested, ... I'm not comfortable with intelligent design being taught in the science classroom.

We now know the parameters of the debate -- it's between $1.2 trillion and $1.6 (trillion). Our goal is to get it as close to $1.6 (trillion) as we can.

That's up to him. He didn't say yes or no.

you leave open the door for a variety of other sexual activities to occur within the home and not be regulated.

We wanted to keep the 911 as is,

We have been working on reconciliation - that's the main thing,

You have people who don't heed those warnings and then put people at risk as a result of not heeding those warnings. There may be a need to look at tougher penalties on those who decide to ride it out and understand that there are consequences to not leaving.

We are not cutting health care services to the beneficiaries. We have squeezed some fraud out. We have squeezed providers.

While not having the force and effect of law, report language has a significant impact,

This shows that extremism in leadership is not rewarded.

unfortunate, it was disappointing. It was uncalled for. I hope he thinks better of it and retracts his statement.

We see it day in, day out around here. There is no agenda, there are no solutions to problems, there's no trying to get our fiscal house in order. Whatever it is, whatever the issue is, it just keeps snapping back. This, I understand, was particularly painful - talking about shrinking this government and doing ... less with more,

We need to get the regular team out of there, and someone who is going to be there for the long term, in there. (That person) would most likely be head of this new organization that would be set up to help the recovery effort,

What happened in America so that mothers and fathers who leave their children in the care of someone else ... find themselves more affirmed by society? ... Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders.

You don't hear the complaints about . . . the red tape, the bureaucracy and the inefficiency in the nonprofit sector, particularly the faith-based sector, the churches, who were out there on the front line meeting needs literally the day after the devastation occurred. That's something we not only need to praise and be thankful for but to encourage and to support financially on behalf of the government.

critical infrastructure needs are vital to Pennsylvania's economy and homeland security.

It was wrong, but it was wrong because we just had bad information,