John McCain
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.Collection: Trust
America's greatest strength has always been its hopeful vision of human progress.Collection: Strength
The first pork-barrel bill that crosses my desk, I'm going to veto it and make the authors of those pork-barrel items famous all over America.Collection: Famous
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.Collection: Truth
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.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Legal
Our great power does not mean we can do whatever we want whenever we want, nor should we assume we have all the wisdom and knowledge necessary to succeed.Collection: Wisdom
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.Collection: Leadership
On the issue of the gay marriage, I believe if people want to have private ceremonies, that's fine. I do not believe that gay marriages should be legal.Collection: Legal
When you're not winning, you're losing.
War is wretched beyond description, and only a fool or a fraud could sentimentalize its cruel reality.
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.
We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital.
For much of my life, the Navy was the only world I knew. It is still the world I know best and love most.
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.
For America, our interests are our values, and our values are our interests.
During one period while I was in solitary, I memorized the names of all 335 of the men who were then prisoners of war in North Vietnam. I can still remember them.
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 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.
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.
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.
The way you have bipartisan negotiations, you sit down across the table, as we did with Ted Kennedy, as I've done with many other members, and you say, 'OK, here's what I want, here's what you want. We'll adhere to your principles, but we'll make concessions.'
I'm proud of my record of reform, taking on my own party.
We cannot forever hide the truth about ourselves, from ourselves.
The problem... is that most members of Congress don't pay attention to what's going on.
Public life has many more privileges than hardships.
Sometimes it's important to watch what the president does rather than what he says.
I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's.
I'm as frustrated with the French, I think, as anyone, but look, there's going to be other challenges and there are going to be other issues. As long as there's a war on terrorism going on, we're all going to have to work together.
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.
I'm not against a border wall, OK, but go to China, and you'll see a border wall there. We need technology, we need drones, we need surveillance capabilities, and we need rapid-reaction capabilities.
I have certainly seen my share of the world as it really is and not how I wish it would be.
We are a country with a conscience.
On Putin's order, corrupt apparatchiks and crony oligarchs rob Russians of their nation's wealth and resources.
I think it's important for Donald Trump to express his appreciation for veterans - not John McCain, but veterans who were incarcerated as prisoners of war.
On Putin's order, Russian security services try to destabilize NATO allies the U.S. has sworn to defend.
You raise taxes during an economic crisis time, as we did in - back in the time of Herbert Hoover, you send the country into a depression.
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.
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.
Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.
I don't doubt the sincerity of my Democratic friends. And they should not doubt ours.
I am a Republican. I'm loyal to the party of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. And I believe that my party, in some ways, has strayed from those principles, particularly on the issue of fiscal discipline.
Thank God for our form of government. The media won't let there be any cover-up.
As a governor and senator, John Chafee set the standard for honesty and decency that the rest of us on our best days could only dream to emulate.
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.
But please know, whether you believe campaign contributions are speech or property, that I learned to love very dearly the right of free expression when I lived without that freedom for a while a long time ago.
I am fully prepared to be commander in chief... I don't need on-the-job training.
If we lost, then who won? Did Al Qaida win? When on the floor of the House of Representatives they cheer - they cheer - when they pass a withdrawal motion that is a certain date for surrender, what were they cheering? Surrender? Defeat?
We must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos; there will be genocide; and they will follow us home.
My greatest fear is the Iranians acquire a nuclear weapon and give it to a terrorist organization. And there is a real threat of them doing that.