110+ John F. Kerry Quotes On Education, Government And State

John F. Kerry is an American politician who served as the 68th United States Secretary of State from 2013 to 2017. He previously served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts from 1985 to 2013 and was the Democratic Party's nominee for President of the United States in the 2004 election. Kerry was also the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts from 1983 to 1985. Following is our collection on famous quotes by John F. Kerry on education, government, love.

Top 10 John F. Kerry Quotes

1. I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.
2. I saw courage both in the Vietnam War and in the struggle to stop it. I learned that patriotism includes protest, not just military service.
3. The American spirit wears no political label. In service to others and yes, in sacrifice for our country, there are no Republicans; there are no Democrats; there are only Americans.
4. I'm proud of my medals. I always was proud of them.
5. It's hard to believe that in the greatest democracy in the world, we need legislation to prevent the government from writing and paying for the news.
6. Being lectured by the president on fiscal responsibility is a little bit like Tony Soprano talking to me about law and order in this country.
7. You just don't invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests!
8. How do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?
9. This fight against drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a fight about our principles. Its about standing up for our environment, our families and our future, and I wont give up this fight.
10. Climate change is real. The science is compelling. And the longer we wait, the harder the problem will be to solve.

John F. Kerry Short Quotes

• America has not led but fled on the issue of global warming.
• And it is time for those who talk about family values to start valuing families.
• The consequences of a crime should not be out of proportion to the crime itself.
• I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty.
• Ask Osama bin Laden is he is better off now than he was four years ago.
• I think the question of abortion is one that should be left for the states to decide.
• I think there has been an exaggeration [of the terrorist threat].
• We still have a lot of work to do to protect our own democracy.
• Bush-McCain stategy in Iraq is policy to stay, not to win.
• Governor Dean has no policy on Iraq evidently, except 'no.' 'No' is not a policy.

John F. Kerry Quotes About Government

There is no greater breach of the public trust than knowingly misleading the country into war. In a democracy, we simply cannot tolerate the abuse of this trust by the government. — John F. Kerry

I'm going to be honest with you - I don't know a lot about Cuba's healthcare system. Is it a government-run system? — John F. Kerry

We are being Americans when we hold our government to account. We are being false to our troops when we send them to a needless war, betraying their trust when we shortchange them on protective equipment, and cheating them when we silently cut their benefits. — John F. Kerry

I think that too far, too much, to a greater degree than is anywhere near appropriate, America and our politics are being governed by more and more powerful interests, by fewer and fewer people in the sense of the amount of money that has controlled access and other kinds of things. — John F. Kerry

I think that for many of us, the years of the Civil Rights movements - Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy running for president in 1968 to end the war and so forth - these were defining moment in terms of trying to hold government accountable and have a level of responsibility and truth-telling. — John F. Kerry

We don't differ with the government on the demands [on Iran], but we totally reject how Bibi is handling it. Bibi sacrificed good relations with the U.S. to keep the status quo on the Palestinians. He poked the [Obama] Administration in the eye on settlements just to appease right-wingers — John F. Kerry

John F. Kerry Quotes About State

I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force-- if necessary-- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security. — John F. Kerry

I don't know what compassionate conservative means. Does it mean cutting kids out of after school programs, Does it mean drilling in the arctic wildlife refuge? Does it mean sending kids to Iraq without body armor that's state of the art? — John F. Kerry

What we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States. — John F. Kerry

I know something about killing. I don't like killing. And I don't think a state honors life by turning around and sanctioning killing. — John F. Kerry

I think the United States is still the indispensable force for positive change and for rule of law and for order and structure. — John F. Kerry

If the choice is one-state, Israel can either be Jewish or Democratic. It cannot be both. — John F. Kerry

What is happening is policy in Israel is being driven by the settlers who don't support a two-state solution, who want their settlements to prevent the possibility of two states. They openly say that. — John F. Kerry

When the nations of the world look upon the United States, they see a country which has achieved what they would all like to become one day. Whether it is in the field of science, art, music, agriculture, politics, economics or war, the United States is the leader. — John F. Kerry

I will never conduct a war or start a war because we want to; the United States of America should only go to war because we have to. And if you live by that guidance, you'll never have veterans throwing away their medals or standing up in protest. — John F. Kerry

If you don't have two states, you have one state, already the non-Jewish population outnumbers the Jewish population in one state. — John F. Kerry

John F. Kerry Quotes About Real

The best way to begin genuine bipartisanship to make America stronger is to work together on the real crises facing our country, not to manufacture an artificial crisis to serve a special interest agenda out of touch with the needs of Americans. — John F. Kerry

So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real. — John F. Kerry

Real Democrats don't abandon the middle class. — John F. Kerry

I know something about aircraft carriers for real. — John F. Kerry

I know there are a lot of musicians and a lot of artists, and there are a lot of writers and other people who inspire young people, but I'd like to see somebody in political life be able to connect and make these choices that we need to make in Washington real in terms of people's lives. — John F. Kerry

Those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions and we will defend our democracy. — John F. Kerry

America deserves a real discussion about real policy. — John F. Kerry

John F. Kerry Famous Quotes And Sayings

NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology. Our future is not in competing at the low-level wage job; it is in creating high-wage, new technology jobs based on our skills and our productivity. — John F. Kerry

When we walk away from global warming, Kyoto, when we are irresponsibly slow in moving toward AIDS in Africa, when we don't advance and live up to our own rhetoric and standards, we set a terrible message of duplicity and hypocrisy. — John F. Kerry

Think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-all challenges that know no borders-the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them. — John F. Kerry

We need to guarantee equal rights and civil rights and say that, here in America, workers have the right to organize - women have the right to choose - and justice belongs to everyone regardless of race or gender or sexual orientation. — John F. Kerry

Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us. — John F. Kerry

I saw how different life was on different sides of the same city. I saw the fear in the eyes of people who were not free. I saw the gratitude of people toward the United States for all that we had done. I felt goosebumps as I got off a military train and heard the Army band strike up 'Stars and Stripes Forever.' — John F. Kerry

You just don't in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pre-text. — John F. Kerry

Values are not just words, values are what we live by. They're about the causes that we champion and the people we fight for. — John F. Kerry

And now that the Greatest Generation is getting older, I think it is the responsibility of all Americans to make sure we do our part for America's seniors. You have earned the best of America -- and we need to make sure you get the protection and health care you deserve. — John F. Kerry

If we can't have a serious conversation without politicizing it on cable TV and making it a scoring point for one day, we're in trouble. — John F. Kerry

We should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific facts. — John F. Kerry

Patriots don't go to Russia. They don't seek asylum in Cuba. They don't seek asylum in Venezuela. They fight their cause here. Edward Snowden is a coward. He is a traitor. And he has betrayed his country. And if he wants to come home tomorrow to face the music, he can do so. — John F. Kerry

Folks, Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from Alaska. Mitt Romney talks like he's only seen Russia by watching 'Rocky IV.' — John F. Kerry

America now stands as the world's foremost power. We should be proud: Not since the age of the Romans have one people achieved such preeminence. But we are not Romans; we do not seek an empire. We are Americans, trustees of a vision and a heritage that commit us to the values of democracy and the universal cause of human rights. — John F. Kerry

If America can go to the moon, then in the decades to come we should not ever have to have young Americans sent to any part of the world to defend and die for America`s gluttony on fossil fuel. — John F. Kerry

Remember the hours after Sept. 11 when we came together as one...It was the worst day we have ever seen, but it brought out the best in all of us. — John F. Kerry

I figured out Karl Rove's political strategy -- make gas so expensive, no Democrats can afford to go to the polls. — John F. Kerry

This is deeply disturbing. Congress provided loans to help businesses hurt by the Sept. 11 attacks, not to be used as an accounting gimmick to cover up this administration's failure to provide for small businesses. — John F. Kerry

You know, education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq. — John F. Kerry

I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm him. — John F. Kerry

I want to start by saying something nice about President Bush. Of all the presidents we've had with the last name of Bush, his economic plan ranks in the top two. — John F. Kerry

We must retool our nation to prepare for the challenge we already face to maintain our position in the global economy. And this much is certain: America will not have national security without economic security. — John F. Kerry

We've been waiting since 1918 for the Boston Red Sox to win the World Series, and ... if I had a choice between the White House and the World Series this year, I'm going to take the White House. How's that? — John F. Kerry

Mitt Romney says he believes in America and that he will restore American exceptionalism. I have news for him, we already have an exceptional American as president and we believe in Barack Obama. — John F. Kerry

Unlike Washington, which is stuck in ideological gridlock, Americans feel the impact of climate change in their own hometowns and they know something must be done. — John F. Kerry

Medicare is paid for by the American taxpayer. Medicare belongs to you. Medicare is for seniors, who many of them are on fixed income, to lift them out of poverty. — John F. Kerry

America has everything most countries envy. A Constitution which is the treasure of mankind, a strong military, natural resources of every kind. Above all, as Tocqueville said, a good people, which is what makes us great. — John F. Kerry

The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country. — John F. Kerry

There are all kinds of atrocities, and I would have to say that, yes, yes, I committed the same kind of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have committed in that I took part in shootings in free fire zones. I conducted harassment and interdiction fire. — John F. Kerry

What Donald Trump is doing is serving the polluters and serving a narrow group of ideological interests. That's not leadership. That's abdication of responsibility, and this step does not make America first. It makes America last. — John F. Kerry

Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real. — John F. Kerry

If you don't believe ... Saddam Hussein is a threat with nuclear weapons, then you shouldn't vote for me. — John F. Kerry

As I have said for two years now, when Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda were cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora, it was wrong to outsource the job of capturing them to Afghan warlords who a week earlier were fighting against us. — John F. Kerry

I want to fully fund education, No Child Left Behind, special-needs education. And that's how we're going to be more competitive, by making sure our kids are graduating from school and college. — John F. Kerry

I don't think losing 3 million jobs, having deficits as far as the eye can go, having 2 million people lose their health insurance, turning your back on kids in schools and not funding No Child Left Behind represents a vision. — John F. Kerry

My dad was a member of the Greatest Generation that achieved victory in World War II. This was the generation that saved the world from fascism, came home and built the great American middle class, led the way in the civil rights movement, protected our environment, and created great programs like Medicare. — John F. Kerry

If the tea party folks would go out there and get angry because they think their taxes are too high, for God's sake, a lot of citizens ought to get angry about the fact that they're being killed and our planet's being injured by what's happening on a daily basis by the way we provide our power and our fuel and the old practices that we have. That's something worth getting angry about. — John F. Kerry

The oceans themselves are threatened and life itself, therefore, and the planet is threatened because of it. — John F. Kerry

If America is at war, I won't speak a word without measuring how it'll sound to the guys doing the fighting when they're listening to their radios in the desert. — John F. Kerry

After Mitt Romney said it would be naive to go into Pakistan to pursue the terrorists, it took President Obama, against the advice of many, to give that order and finally rid this earth of Osama bin Laden. Ask Osama bin Laden is he is better off now than he was four years ago. — John F. Kerry

Violence has to end. And Israelis have a bright to defend themselves against any violence that is attacking innocent people with a knife in the old city in Jerusalem or elsewhere. No country should be under siege like that. — John F. Kerry

Even as a supporter of Roe v. Wade, I am compelled to acknowledge that the language both sides use on this subject can be unfortunately misleading and unconstructive.... Everyone is worse off for it. — John F. Kerry

The fact is that you literally, by definition, cannot have a Jewish state and a democratic state and have a whole bunch of Palestinians in it who are living under military rule while the rest of the country is living under civil rule, and they have different rights and different - it's just not a democracy. — John F. Kerry

I've been having problems with the right wing lately. — John F. Kerry

We need to talk to all the players in the Middle East, not because we agree with them, but because they play a role. — John F. Kerry

I am not a spokesperson for the church and the church is not a spokesperson for the United States of America. — John F. Kerry

I accept that friends of ours have decided that the President's non-strike has somehow impacted perceptions of us. But I believe they are dead wrong and I think the critics are dead wrong, and here's why. The President [Barack Obama] made his decision to strike. He announced his decision to strike publicly. And the purpose of the strike was to get the chemical weapons out of Syria. That's the purpose. — John F. Kerry

Under this [Bush] Administration, America's middle class has been abandoned -- its dreams denied, its Main Street interests ignored and its mainstream values scorned by a White House that puts privilege first. — John F. Kerry

When President Bush sees America, he sees only a military superpower. I see a moral and idealistic beacon. Mr. Bush may talk about democracy all he wants, but it is not democracy to wilfully disdain and heap scorn on world opinion. We do not command moral leadership by starting pre-emptive wars. — John F. Kerry

We have an electorate that doesn't always pay that much attention to what's going on so people are influenced by a simple slogan rather than the facts or truth or what's happening. — John F. Kerry

Politics has always been the art of the possible. Today it's too often the art of the probable - tinkering around the edges without any greater vision, without a sense of optimism and imagination. — John F. Kerry

It's the [George Bush] president's fiscal policies that have driven up the biggest deficits in American history. He's added more debt to the debt of the United States in four years than all the way from George Washington to Ronald Reagan put together. — John F. Kerry

As President, I will not be the last to know what is going on in my command. — John F. Kerry

We cannot fight communism all over the world, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now. — John F. Kerry

The Russians need to understand that you cannot have peace [in Syria] unless you resolve the question of Sunni buy-in. — John F. Kerry

America must always be the world's paramount military power. But we can magnify our power through alliances. — John F. Kerry

I mean, all of these things that [Bashar Assad] has done, there's no way even if President Obama wanted to just play along that you could actually achieve peace, because there are 65 million Sunni in between Baghdad and the border of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, who will never, ever again accept Assad as a member - as a legitimate leader. — John F. Kerry

If you think I would have gone to war the way George Bush did, don't vote for me. — John F. Kerry

We have staring us in the face here an enormous opportunity to actually find a way forward to have peace and stability in Syria, to reconstitute it. It'll take years to do that. This will not be an easy fight even with concerted coordination with respect to ISIL. But it is far more doable with that kind of approach than otherwise. — John F. Kerry

If you want to be a Jewish state and you want to remain a democracy, you have to have a two-state solution. — John F. Kerry

I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an Atheist. We have separation of church and state in the United States of America. — John F. Kerry

It's pretty standard fare in political discourse. You misconstrue what somebody said. You isolate a statement, you lend your interpretation to it and then feign moral outrage. And Democrats have been doing it for years. — John F. Kerry

People talk about [Bashar] Assad running Syria. He doesn't control his own country. He's down to about 20, 25 percent of the country. What is this fiction that he is somehow the only person who can save Syria? There's - with Assad there, there is no Syria. So that's what the Iranians and the Russians need to really begin to focus in on. — John F. Kerry

I still believe Americas destiny is to become a living testament to what free human beings can accomplish by acting in unity. — John F. Kerry

There is no bigger judgment for a president of the United States than how you take a nation to war. — John F. Kerry

It's very hard to get other countries to give up their weapons when you're busy developing a new one. — John F. Kerry

American can do better, and help is on the way. — John F. Kerry

What remains unchanged is the principle, which is that we do not launch wars without overwelming reasons, and overwhelming alliances, and without overwhelming force. — John F. Kerry

The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed 'window of vulnerability,' which we now know not to exist. — John F. Kerry

And here and now we must insist again that fidelity, honor, and love of country demand untrammeled debate and open dissent. At no time is that truer than in the midst of a war rooted in deceit and justified by continuing deception. — John F. Kerry

President Obama has made it his mission that we welcome our troops home with care, and concern, and the respect they deserve. That is how an exceptional nation says "thank you" to its most exceptional men and women. — John F. Kerry

America is the one that has led the effort to strengthen NATO and strengthen the front-line states against Russia's pressures. — John F. Kerry

I just want to assure you that both President Bush and I have very firm alibis. — John F. Kerry

I have a plan to protect the environment so that we leave this place in better shape to our children than we were handed it by our parents. — John F. Kerry

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. — John F. Kerry

I’ve often said that global climate change is an issue where no one has the luxury of being “half-pregnant.” You either are or you aren’t. And so it is with climate change. You either understand and accept the science – or you don’t. Folks this isn’t a cafeteria where you can pick and choose and accept the science that tells us what is happening, but then reject the science that warns us what will happen. — John F. Kerry

It’s time we framed every question - every issue -- not in terms of what’s in it for ‘me,’ but what’s in it for all of us? — John F. Kerry

I don't want to claim that God is on our side. As Abraham Lincoln told us, I want to pray humbly that we are on God's side. — John F. Kerry

We don't need a president who just says, "Gentlemen, start your engines." We need a president who says, America, let's start our economy and put people back to work. — John F. Kerry

Each and every child in this country is valuable because they are our future as a society. We cannot afford to lose a single child to ill-health, under-education, abuse, addiction, jail, or gun violence. America's highest goal should be for every child to grow up to be a successful young adult -- healthy, educated, free, secure, and a good citizen. — John F. Kerry

Life Lessons by John F. Kerry

1. John F. Kerry's career in politics demonstrates the importance of dedication and hard work in order to be successful.
2. He also shows that it is possible to overcome adversity and to persevere in the face of opposition.
3. Finally, his example demonstrates the importance of being able to compromise and work with others in order to achieve one's goals.