Everett Dirksen Quotes

During a political campaign everyone is concerned with what a candidate will do on this or that question if he is elected except the candidate; he's too busy wondering what he'll do if he isn't elected.

The U.S. Senate - an old scow which doesn't move very fast, but never sinks.

I am a man of principle, and one of my basic principles is flexibility.

The mind is no match with the heart in persuasion; constitutionality is no match with compassion.

Life is not a static thing. The only people who do not change their minds are incompetents in asylums, and those in cemeteries.

I have said, with respect to authorization bills, that I do not want the Congress or the country to commit fiscal suicide on the installment plan.

When I feel the heat, I see the light.

When all is said and done, the real citadel of strength of any community is in the hearts and minds and desires of those who dwell there.

We are becoming so accustomed to millions and billions of dollars that 'thousands' has almost passed out of the dictionary.

A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.

But the basic difficulty still remains: It is the expansion of Federal power, about which I wish to express my alarm. How easily we embrace such business.

We have been through this biennial convulsion four or five different times over the past 10 or 12 years, and now it appears that we are going through this quiet agony all over again.