Robert Byrd Quotations

One's family is the most important thing in life. I look at it this way: One of these days I'll be over in a hospital somewhere with four walls around me. And the only people who'll be with me will be my family.

To the American people I say, awaken to what is happening. It is the duty of each citizen to be vigilant, to protect liberty, to speak out, left and right and disagree lest be trampled underfoot by misguided zealotry and extreme partisanship.

Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people's liberties that is in jeopardy. That is why I wrote 'Losing America.'

This war is not necessary. We are truly sleepwalking through history.

The money the president wants to borrow for Iraq will come directly out of the American taxpayer wallets in the form of Medicare and Social Security receipts. That's your money

It is money, money, money! Not ideas, not principles, but money that reigns supreme in American politics.

It was the separation of powers upon which the framers placed their hopes for the preservation of the people's liberties. Despite this heritage, the congress has been in too many cases more than willing to walk away from its constitutional powers.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust

We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends.

I have never seen such extreme partisanship, such bitter partisanship, and such forgetfulness of the fate of our fathers and of the Constitution.

Is it any wonder, why the approval ratings of the Congress go up every time we go into recess?

Our ideals of freedom, set forth and realized in our Constitution, are our greatest export to the world.

Mission accomplished? The mission in Iraq, as laid out by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, has failed.

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences

And the president is all wrong when he maintains that a nominee should have an up-or-down vote. The Constitution doesn't say that. The Constitution doesn't say that that nominee shall have any vote at all. There doesn't have to even be a vote.

I have been in Congress for more than a half century. I have lived through times of fear and times of hope. Of despair and of achievement. I have seen our government at its best, but today I fear that we see our government at its worst.

The ongoing strife in Iraq, and the billions of dollars that the President is seeking to continue that war, give me little comfort that this Administration has learned from its mistakes in Iraq.

There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much.

She's not a lightning rod. I was concerned that the president might send up someone who just automatically would bring about a filibuster, but he didn't do that.

Show me another 87-year-old man who's got the energy that I've got, and I'll eat your hat,

She knows I love the Senate, ... She wants me to continue to serve the people, and she'll be with me. She'll be with me shoulder to shoulder.

I have had the faith of a mustard seed, and I've been able to move mountains, ... And there are other mountains, and I'll be able to move them.

I apologize for any wrongdoing I or my players did. I thought I was defending my players, but I'm sure that's what Coach Fred Hickman was trying to do too. I'm sorry about all of that.

He never gets rattled. We've been playing in spurts like that all year. In the second half, we started containing the ball better. The Whippets are a well-coached team and they played hard.

Our recommendations to the president have been followed, in that he is reaching out across the aisle and getting most of the views of the senators on both sides of the aisle.

We encourage people to use microfilm when that will be sufficient for their research purposes. We want to preserve (the bound volumes) for purposes that demand some aspect of utilizing the original format.

We ought to have a plan to bring our people home, ... I'm not suggesting any particular deadline, but I think our men and women ought to be brought home. The National Guard, in particular, ought to be here serving our country when we have storms like Katrina.

The questions continue to grow. The doubts are beginning to drown out the assurances. For every insistence from Washington that the weapons of mass destruction case against Iraq is sound comes a counterpoint from the field -- another dry hole, another dead end.

First, we've got to get over the fact that it's Lanier. We have to play the game, play hard and handle their pressure. We want to try to prevent (high-scoring Bulldogs junior guard R.L.) Horton from getting on a run. Lanier is so balanced and athletic, though, that it's kind of pick your poison with them.

There's more to come. We've got to level with the American people.

The season has come for Americans to look homeward ... instead of continuing to spend billions of dollars in Iraq ,

I want answers - we all want answers - as to why it took so long for rescue teams to get on the ground. There is no excuse for the days of delay and the inexplicable lack of coordination in the response effort, ... We knew the danger was coming. Yet, the government failed to respond. Lives were lost because the government failed to do its job.

This incredible American family will undoubtedly once again demonstrate to the nation that they will endure -- and that it is how one lives and not how one dies that ultimately matters.

This ill-considered (ticket tax) proposal resulted in real cuts in firefighter grants, first responder grants, Coast Guard operations, and in the number of airport screeners,

It is time to come home, America. Time to look within our own borders and within our own souls. There are many questions to be answered and many missions to accomplish right here on our own soil.

Congress should be approving a more robust homeland security bill,

Congress is not an ATM. We have to be able to explain this new, enormous bill to the American people.

I've given most of my life to serving the people of West Virginia, and it began here 59 years ago, ... six more years, six more years.

They call me 'The Pork King,' they don't know how much I enjoy it.

Once the action is taken by Congress to pass this tax cut, that money is going out. There is no guesswork to that.

The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan realm of W. Va.

The Congress and certainly this Senate is not ordinary, and certainly not Lilliputian. We're senators.

I love this man from Alaska. I do. I love him. I feel that I have my blood in my veins is with his blood. I love him. But I love the Senate more.

I know the moment wasn't too big for us. Lanier made a lot of shots. They made shots against the zone. Then when we went man, they went to a 1-4 (set) and got to the rim. They've got experienced guard play.

I had seen his two daughters, but I was more interested in fiddle music at that point. As time went on, I became more interested in his daughters than in his fiddle playing.

I have the best job in America because I represent you, the people of West Virginia. And I want to keep this job,

I am very pleased with the court's decision, which I believe to be a great victory for the American people and our Constitution,

I congratulate Mr. Lott and Mr. Daschle, ... I would never have thought it could be done.

The market for horsemeat is not an American market, ... Horsemeat is shipped abroad. The three slaughterhouses in the U.S. are foreign-owned. Thus, American horses are sold to a foreign company, killed for consumption in a foreign market, and foreign-owned companies profit from the export of horsemeat. Many Americans would be shocked to learn that our animals suffer such a fate, all in order to satisfy the tastes of those living in Europe and Asia.

This is our basic document. It guarantees our freedoms, ... I think the American people revere it, but they don't know a lot about it. I'm trying to inspire students and teachers . . . to study it, to read it.

To engage in war is always to pick a wild card. And war must always be the last resort, not a first choice. I truly must question the judgment of any president who can say that a massive, unprovoked military attack on a nation which is over fifty percent children is 'in the highest moral traditions of our country.'

If the voters really understood what we were up to they'd vote us out of office.

There is ample evidence that the horrific events of Sept. 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, who masterminded the Sept. 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein, who did not.

Do not run a campaign that would embarrass your mother.

Congress is not an ATM.

Today I weep for my country. No more is the image of America one of strong, yet benevolent peacekeeper. ... Around the globe, our friends mistrust us, our word is disputed, our intentions are questioned. We flaunt our superpower status with arrogance....After war has ended the United States will have to rebuild much more than the country of Iraq. We will have to rebuild America's image around the globe.

Political correctness gets in the way of all too many things in this country of ours, I am not a subscriber of political correctness by any means, shape or form.

Saddam Hussein is a threat, but the threat is not so great that we must be stampeded to provide such authority to this president just weeks before an election.

Can it be that we, too, are ready to embrace the foul concepts of atheism? Somebody is tampering with America's soul, I leave it to you who that somebody is.

The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons...

America’s true power lies not in its will to dominate but in its ability to inspire.

My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much.

There is no doubt that constitutional freedoms will never be abolished in one fell swoop, for the American people cherish their freedoms, and would not tolerate such a loss if they could perceive it. But the erosion of freedom rarely comes as an all-out frontal assault but rather as a gradual, noxious creeping, cloaked in secrecy, and glossed over by reassurances of greater security.

Be sure you avoid the Ku Klux Klan. Don't get that albatross around your neck. Once you've made that mistake, you inhibit your operations in the political arena.

I am a former Kleagle [recruiter] of the Ku Klux Klan in Raleigh County. The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the union.

I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side. ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.