Our shared values define us more than our differences. And acknowledging those shared values can see us through our challenges today if we have the wisdom to trust in them again.
John McCain
On the subject of Osama bin Laden... we will track him down. We will capture him. We will bring him to justice, and I will follow him to the gates of hell.
The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.
When you're not winning, you're losing.
My record shows that I have put my country first, and I follow the philosophy and traditions of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.
In the real world, as lived and experienced by real people, the demand for human rights and dignity, the longing for liberty and justice and opportunity, the hatred of oppression and corruption and cruelty is reality.
As far as this business of solitary confinement goes, the most important thing for survival is communication with someone, even if it's only a wave or a wink, a tap on the wall, or to have a guy put his thumb up. It makes all the difference.
Our political differences, no matter how sharply they are debated, are really quite narrow in comparison to the remarkably durable national consensus on our founding convictions.
Every day, people serve their neighbors and our nation in many different ways, from helping a child learn and easing the loneliness of those without a family to defending our freedom overseas. It is in this spirit of dedication to others and to our country that I believe service should be broadly and deeply encouraged.
I believe in evolution. But I also believe, when I hike the Grand Canyon and see it at sunset, that the hand of God is there also.
Saddam Hussein is a risk-taking aggressor who has attacked four countries, used chemical weapons against his own people, professed a desire to harm the United States and its allies, and, even faced with the prospect of his regime's imminent destruction, has still refused to abide by Security Council demands that he disarm.
When a president makes life and death decisions, he should draw strength and wisdom from broad and deep experience with the reasons for and the risks of committing our children to our defense. For no matter how many others are involved in the decision, the president is a lonely man in a dark room when the casualty reports come in.
Giap was a master of logistics, but his reputation rests on more than that. His victories were achieved by a patient strategy that he and Ho Chi Minh were convinced would succeed - an unwavering resolve to suffer immense casualties and the near total destruction of their country to defeat any adversary, no matter how powerful.
If you want to preserve - I'm very serious now - if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started.
In 1987, I had my first opportunity to provide 'advice and consent' on a Supreme Court nominee. At that time, I stated that the qualifications essential for evaluating a nominee for the bench included 'integrity, character, legal competence and ability, experience, and philosophy and judicial temperament.' On that test, Elena Kagan fails.
Do not yield. Do not flinch. Stand up. Stand up with our President and fight. We're Americans. We're Americans, and we'll never surrender. They will.
For America, our interests are our values, and our values are our interests.
I have watched men suffer the anguish of imprisonment, defy appalling human cruelty... break for a moment, then recover inhuman strength to defy their enemies once more.
Frankly, I would never accept an award from Vladimir Putin because then you kind of give some credence and credibility to this butcher, this KGB agent, which is what he is.
Civic participation over a lifetime, working in neighborhoods and communities and service of all kinds - military and civilian, full-time and part-time, national and international - will strengthen America's civic purpose.
America's greatest strength has always been its hopeful vision of human progress.
We are an important check on the powers of the executive. Our consent is necessary for the president to appoint jurists and powerful government officials and, in many respects, to conduct foreign policy. Whether we are of the same party, we are not the president's subordinates. We are his equal!
When Barack Obama won in 2008, in 2009 I voted for his team because I think that - that the American people wanted him to have his team. But don't think I wasn't worried about it. Really worried.
Putin's Russia is our adversary and moral opposite. It is committed to the destruction of the post-war, rule-based world order built on American leadership and the primacy of our political and economic values.
We cannot forever hide the truth about ourselves, from ourselves.
War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.
I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's.
Our national political campaigns never stop. We seem convinced that majorities exist to impose their will with few concessions and that minorities exist to prevent the party in power from doing anything important. That's not how we were meant to govern.
Our armed forces will fight for peace in Iraq, a peace built on more secure foundations than are found today in the Middle East. Even more important, they will fight for two human conditions of even greater value than peace: liberty and justice.
The president has promised greater border security. We can agree to that. A literal wall might not be the most effective means to that end, but we can provide the resources necessary to secure the border with smart and affordable measures.
What is most troubling about Mr. Putin's aggression in Crimea is that it reflects a growing disregard for America's credibility in the world. That has emboldened other aggressive actors - from Chinese nationalists to Al Qaeda terrorists and Iranian theocrats.
On 'don't ask, don't tell' I was always the same. I said we needed a complete review of the impact on morale and battle effectiveness of 'don't ask, don't tell' before we repeal it. That's my position now. Now they're trying to ram through a repeal without a - any kind of really realistic survey done.
The United States must look beyond Mr. Putin. His regime may appear imposing, but it is rotting inside. His Russia is not a great power on par with America. It is a gas station run by a corrupt, autocratic regime.
We all know spending levels for defense and other urgent priorities have been woefully inadequate for years. But we haven't found the will to work together to adjust them.
The tea partiers are a great addition. The tea partiers have invigorated a base that has been dormant for a long period of time. We're going to have a broad array of different views in our Republican conference, and I think it might be more interesting than any I've been in in a long time.
As chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am confronted every day with the security concerns and threats to our own nation's safety, as well as threats to the rest of the world.
China is the one, the only one, that can control Kim Jong Un, this crazy, fat kid that's running North Korea.
Barbara Boxer is the most bitterly partisan, most anti-defense senator in the United States Senate today. I know that because I've had the unpleasant experience of having to serve with her.
I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it.
We are a country with a conscience.
On Putin's order, Russia intervenes in Syria not to fight terrorists but to abet the war crimes of the Assad regime. Russian bombers deliberately target aid workers and hospitals. They threaten Syrian freedom fighters trained by the U.S. They are allied with our enemies in the Middle East and trying to weaken our friendships there.
I guess my view is I believe less governance is best governance and that government should not do what the free enterprise and private enterprise and indidividual entrepreneurship and the states can do.
The core political values of our free society are so deeply embedded in our collective consciousness that only a few malcontents, lunatics generally, ever dare to threaten them.
We need to listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies. When we believe that international action is necessary, whether military, economic, or diplomatic, we will try to persuade our friends that we are right. But we, in return, must also be willing to be persuaded by them.
The French repulsed wave after wave of frontal attacks at Dien Bien Phu. The 1968 Tet offensive against the U.S. was a military disaster that effectively destroyed the Viet Cong. But Giap persisted and prevailed.
I believe that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein. I believe it's clear that he had every intention to acquire and use weapons of mass destruction. I can only imagine what Saddam Hussein would be doing with the wealth he would acquire with oil at $110 and $120 a barrel.
As he assumes the awesome responsibilities of the presidency, Donald Trump has inherited a world on fire and a U.S. military weakened by years of senseless budget cuts. I am encouraged that he recognizes these problems and has pledged to rebuild the military.
Putin wants to restore the Russian empire. That's his ambition; he's stated it many times.
Depriving the oppressed of a beacon of hope could lose us the world we have built and thrived in. It could cost our reputation in history as the nation distinct from all others in our achievements, our identity, and our enduring influence on mankind. Our values are central to all three.
I don't think anybody is - no one could compare to Ronald Reagan, because he was the right man at the right time.
