George McGovern
The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.Collection: Patriotism
Politics is an act of faith; you have to show some kind of confidence in the intellectual and moral capacity of the public.Collection: Politics
I wish I had known more firsthand about the concerns and problems of American businesspeople while I was a U.S. senator and later a presidential nominee. That knowledge would have made me a better legislator and a more worthy aspirant to the White House.Collection: Knowledge
The Establishment center... has led us into the stupidest and cruelest war in all history. That war is a moral and political disaster - a terrible cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.Collection: War
It is not patriotic to commit young Americans to war unless our national security clearly requires it.Collection: War
I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.Collection: War
From secrecy and deception in high places, come home, America. From military spending so wasteful that it weakens our nation, come home, America.Collection: Home
My father was a clergyman and always said: 'Hate the sin but love the sinner.'
I suppose politicians have always wanted to get re-elected, but there's a kind of a feeling now that if you just discredit your opposition, it makes it easier for you to win. I don't think that's necessarily true.
I think the country's getting disgusted with Washington partly because of the decline of civility in government.
I'm a movie buff.
Under the guise of protecting us from ourselves, the right and the left are becoming ever more aggressive in regulating behavior.
Everyone is exposed to economic risks of some kind.
I make one pledge above all others - to seek and speak the truth with all the resources of mind and spirit I command.
I seek to call America home to those principles that gave us birth.
The longer the title, the less important the job.
I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
The truth is that I oppose the Iraq war, just as I opposed the Vietnam War, because these two conflicts have weakened the U.S. and diminished our standing in the world and our national security.
I am a liberal and always have been - just not the wild-eyed character the Republicans made me out to be.
I met my wife in South Dakota.
I seek the presidency because I believe deeply in the American promise and can no longer accept the diminishing of that promise.
I flew a full string of 35 combat missions over some of the most heavily defended targets in Europe. We were hitting Hitler's oil refineries, his tank factories, his aircraft factories, his railway yards. Those were our prime targets.
You don't run for the presidency out of nostalgia.
It really is true that an orator is simply a good man who speaks well.
I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket.
The whole campaign was a tragic case of mistaken identity.
You know, sometimes, when they say you're ahead of your time, it's just a polite way of saying you have a real bad sense of timing.
No man should advocate a course in private that he's ashamed to admit in public.
I am fed up with a system which busts the pot smoker and lets the big dope racketeer go free.
I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie.
My dad was a Methodist minister.
I'm what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like.
I've enjoyed myself 90 percent of the time.
I move ahead, I live.
I was tired. I hadn't slept eight hours in two, three years. I lived on four, five hours of sleep. You can do it during a campaign because thousands are screaming for you. You're getting adrenaline shots each day. Then the campaign ends, and there are no more shots.
I never even had the time to read novels.
It's nice not to have to worry about constituents.
Now, I simply do what I want.
I'm constantly meeting people who said that they cast their first vote for me, or that they cut their eye teeth on the 1972 campaign, or that they didn't vote for me but admire my positions.
I have to have a passion in my life.
When you start one of these programs, school lunch programs, in a country that heretofore had nothing of that kind, immediately school enrollment jumps dramatically. Girls and boys get to the classroom with the promise of a good meal once a day.
I hope I live long enough to see every hungry school child in the world being fed under the so-called McGovern-Dole program.
I did frequently refer to my war record in World War II, but not in any flamboyant way.
I was the guy who was constantly speaking out against the Vietnam War. I have no regrets about that.
One of the sharp parallels is that neither Vietnam nor Iraq was the slightest threat to America's national security.
As an American, I want our forces to prevail.
I would not plan to base my campaign primarily on opposition to the war in the Persian Gulf.
I think it was my study of history that convinced me that the Democratic Party was more on the side of the average American.
At least I have precluded the possibility of peaking too early.
Every once in a while, I run into somebody who tells me that she met her husband in my campaign or a husband who says, I met my wife. I have to tell you, I caused a few divorces too.