Quotes by Jack Kemp

“Just as the left has to be more willing to question 'Government knows best,' the right has to rethink its laissez-faire attitude toward government.”

“I can't understand why the Democratic parties seem so hostile to economic growth and business.”

“The zeitgeist is for cutting spending and balancing the budget. But I do not want the Republican Party to be perceived as putting the budget ahead of people, jobs and education.”

“Our goals for this nation must be nothing less than to double the size of our economy and bring prosperity and jobs, ownership and equality of opportunity to all Americans, especially those living in our nation's pockets of poverty.”

“Republicans many times can't get the words 'equality of opportunity' out of their mouths. Their lips do not form that way.”

“There are no limits to our future if we don't put limits on our people.”

“To Republicans, I humbly suggest that we make it possible for Democrats to give up their quest for redistribution of income and wealth by our acceptance of an appropriate role for government in financing those public goods and services necessary to secure a social safety net below which no American would be allowed to fall.”

“My passion for ideas is not matched with a passion for partisan or electoral politics.”

“Pro football gave me a good sense of perspective to enter politics: I'd already been booed, cheered, cut, sold, traded and hung in effigy.”

“There are a lot of grotesqueries in politics, not the least of which is the fund-raising side.”

“I learned about the market's power when I was traded to the Buffalo Bills for $100.”

“American society as a whole can never achieve the outer-reaches of potential, so long as it tolerates the inner cities of despair.”

“The only thing I can do is tell the truth as I see it and let the chips fall where they may.”

“With the end of the cold war, all the 'isms' of the 20th century - Fascism, Nazism, Communism and the evil of apartheid-ism - have failed. Except one. Only democracy has shown itself true the help of all mankind.”

“Councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.”

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