Dick Cheney Quotes

One of the problems we have as a government is our inability to keep secrets. And it costs us, in terms of our relationship with other governments, in terms of the willingness of other intelligence services to work with us, in terms of revealing sources and methods. And all of those elements enter into some of these leaks.

I was in end stage heart failure, liver and kidneys shutting down, and on an emergency basis they went in and planted a pump in my chest. It was battery operated. That kept me alive for 20 months and that got me to the transplant. And I wake up every morning now with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day I never expected to see.

There's every reason to believe there will be further attacks attempted against the United States. For us to spend so much time patting ourselves on the back because we got bin Laden that we miss the next attack would be a terrible tragedy.

In Iraq, a ruthless dictator cultivated weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. He gave support to terrorists, had an established relationship with al Qaeda, and his regime is no more.

You really do think about it institutionally; this is your job, and to some extent you benefit from having a job to do at a moment like this. You have things that you have to make happen. And you don't have time for the emotional reaction that might otherwise occur if somebody was just sitting there watching these events unfold and had no responsibilities.

My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

I'm one of those people who believes that part of the greatness of the United States is our private sector. It's what we do as private citizens for ourselves and our companies. And our economy is essentially the wonder of the world because, in fact, it's produced so much for us over the years.

To bring the worst of the worst terrorists inside the United States would be cause for great danger and regret in the years to come. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.

You got to have people at the top who respond to and are selected by presidents.

The Columbia is lost, but the dreams that inspired its crew remain with us.

I worry very much that we're in a situation now where there doesn't appear to be any limitation whatsoever in terms of the spending commitments that Obama's administration wants to make. Vast expansion in terms of the deficit, but it also says a lot about what they intend for the role of government in the society.

If you're going to go increase taxes on small businesses, you're going to slow down the extent to which we're able to reduce unemployment. So I think it's a serious mistake; the wrong time to raise taxes.

That's the nature of the intelligence business. You have to work with what you can get your hands on, but it is.. and in fact it's more an art form than it is a science, and you have to continually work the problem, continually try.

I think there's - the assumption seems to predominate on the other side that the reason there's been problems in the world is because of U.S. activity, U.S. conduct. We're the bad guys.We're the ones that lead people to become terrorists. We're the ones that generate the kind of criticism that has given al Qaeda an excuse to come attack the United States.

That intelligence capability is enormously important to the United States, to our conduct of foreign policy, to defense matters, to economic matters. And I am a strong supporter of it.

The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many.

It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.

In his years in Washington, Senator Kerry has been one vote of a hundred in the United States Senate - and fortunately on matters of national security, he was very often in the minority.

We've gotten a long way on missile defense. We know how to do it. We know how to take down incoming warheads, but we need to do a lot more work in order to be - to deploy a system that'll defend the United States against those kinds of limited strikes that might be possible by a nuclear armed North Korea or Iran.

We need, from time to time, to use military force or all of the resources at our command in order to defend the nation and defend our friends. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I think there are probably some who actually believe, if we just go talk nice to these folks, everything is going to be OK. I don't think the world works that way.

In our own country, we take democratic values seriously - and so we always have a vigorous debate on the issues. That's part of the greatness of America, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

In terms of asking questions, I plead guilty. I ask a hell of a lot of questions. That's my job.

It will be necessary for us to be a nation of men, and not laws.

I think the decision that's been made with respect to allowing gays to serve openly in the military is a good one.

I do not believe the President requires any additional authorization from the Congress before committing US forces to achieve our objectives in the Gulf.

Whoever controls the flow of Persian Gulf oil has a stranglehold not only on our economy but also on the other countries of the world as well.

I want to avoid personal attacks, ... I promise not to make fun of your singing.

I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

I think it's fair to say you can't predict a straight line to victory. You know, there'll be good days and bad days along the way.

There's overwhelming evidence that there was a connection between Al Qaeda and the Iraqi government.

The good Lord didn't see fit to put oil and gas only where there are democratically elected regimes friendly to the United States. Occasionally we have to operate in places where, all things considered, one would not normally choose to go. But, we go where the business is.

Had the decision belonged to Senator Kerry, Saddam Hussein would still be in power today in Iraq. In fact, Saddam Hussein would almost certainly still be in control of Kuwait.

The Iraqi forces are conducting the Mother of all Retreats.

As I think about the future, I'm back where most people live their lives. Which is, death is not imminent, and that's different.

I think President Obama is going to be a one-term president.

Under our plan you can build wealth, even if you don't have a dollar to spare.

When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry.

I can think of a lot of words to describe Senator Kerry's position on Iraq; "consistent" is not one of them.

Remember, success for a politician is 50% plus one. You don't have to have everybody on board.

No, I’ve always been impressed with the tremendous resilience of the American economy. I think over the years, over the decades, it’s demonstrated this tremendous ability to take severe body blows, if you will, and bounce back.

How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat? If we had not acted, Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be in power.

Everyone knows that you're not really a real man unless you own a gun.

It used to be you needed to have a very large sophisticated state before you could even have a nuclear weapon... Now the technology is widespread enough. It doesn't take very many people to be able to cobble together a devastating attack, and all it takes is one.

We need to have a pro-growth policy put in place that offers people hope and offers the opportunity for businesses to expand and for them to have confidence in what the world is going to look like for the next two or three or four years with respect to economic policy.

One of the worst things we could do is start to act now as though the attack of 9/11 is a thing of the past and will never be repeated. That's just not true.

I think, in fact, the situation with respect to al Qaeda, to say that, you know, that was a big attack we had on 9/11, but it's not likely again, I just think that's dead wrong. I think the biggest strategic threat the United States faces today is the possibility of another 9/11 with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind. And I think al Qaeda is out there even as we meet, trying to figure out how to do that.

I worked for George Bush. I'm proud to have worked for him. I think that a lot of the most controversial things we did, that people didn't like and - and criticized us for, things like the terror surveillance program or the enhanced interrogation techniques, were things that allowed us to save lives.

I'm up in the Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session.