Robert Byrd Quotes (50 Quotes)

I love this man from Alaska. I do. I love him. I feel that I have my blood in my veins is with his blood. I love him. But I love the Senate more.

The market for horsemeat is not an American market, ... Horsemeat is shipped abroad. The three slaughterhouses in the U. S. are foreign-owned. Thus, American horses are sold to a foreign company, killed for consumption in a foreign market, and foreign-owned companies profit from the export of horsemeat. Many Americans would be shocked to learn that our animals suffer such a fate, all in order to satisfy the tastes of those living in Europe and Asia.

And the president is all wrong when he maintains that a nominee should have an up-or-down vote. The Constitution doesn't say that. The Constitution doesn't say that that nominee shall have any vote at all. There doesn't have to even be a vote.

Is it any wonder, why the approval ratings of the Congress go up every time we go into recess?

I want answers - we all want answers - as to why it took so long for rescue teams to get on the ground. There is no excuse for the days of delay and the inexplicable lack of coordination in the response effort, ... We knew the danger was coming. Yet, the government failed to respond. Lives were lost because the government failed to do its job.

This ill-considered (ticket tax) proposal resulted in real cuts in firefighter grants, first responder grants, Coast Guard operations, and in the number of airport screeners,

The questions continue to grow. The doubts are beginning to drown out the assurances. For every insistence from Washington that the weapons of mass destruction case against Iraq is sound comes a counterpoint from the field -- another dry hole, another dead end.

another tragic milestone in this costly war, in which too much blood has been spilled already.

I am very pleased with the court's decision, which I believe to be a great victory for the American people and our Constitution,

Congress is not an ATM. We have to be able to explain this new, enormous bill to the American people.

Representative Capito, I believe, seems to be making great gains in the House Republican leadership, ... That's an opportunity that we haven't had in West Virginia.

There is no doubt that constitutional freedoms will never be abolished in one fell swoop, for the American people cherish their freedoms, and would not tolerate such a loss if they could perceive it. But the erosion of freedom rarely comes as an all-out f

The money the president wants to borrow for Iraq will come directly out of the American taxpayer wallets in the form of Medicare and Social Security receipts. That's your money.

There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time. I'm going to use that word. We just need to work together to make our country a better country, and I'd just as soon quit talking about it so much.

The ongoing strife in Iraq, and the billions of dollars that the President is seeking to continue that war, give me little comfort that this Administration has learned from its mistakes in Iraq.

To the American people I say, awaken to what is happening. It is the duty of each citizen to be vigilant, to protect liberty, to speak out, left and right and disagree lest be trampled underfoot by misguided zealotry and extreme partisanship.

I refuse simply to toe the party line when it comes to Supreme Court justices. I hail from a conservative state. And, like a majority of my constituents, I prefer conservative judges.

Hitler never abandoned the cloak of legality; he recognized the enormous psychological value of having the law on his side. Instead, he turned the law inside out and made illegality legal.

Republicans say West Virginians are looking for change after nearly 50 years of Byrd as their senator. But Capito, in an interview with Gannett News Service in late September, said the odds would be exceedingly against me ... Maybe this is not my time.

I have been in Congress for more than a half century. I have lived through times of fear and times of hope. Of despair and of achievement. I have seen our government at its best, but today I fear that we see our government at its worst.

The Congress and certainly this Senate is not ordinary, and certainly not Lilliputian. We're senators.

It was the separation of powers upon which the framers placed their hopes for the preservation of the people's liberties. Despite this heritage, the congress has been in too many cases more than willing to walk away from its constitutional powers.

We encourage people to use microfilm when that will be sufficient for their research purposes. We want to preserve (the bound volumes) for purposes that demand some aspect of utilizing the original format.

It is the Constitution of the United States that has been undermined, undercut, and is under attack. It is the American people's liberties that is in jeopardy. That is why I wrote 'Losing America.'

Our ideals of freedom, set forth and realized in our Constitution, are our greatest export to the world.

Congress is not an ATM.

I apologize for any wrongdoing I or my players did. I thought I was defending my players, but I'm sure that's what Coach Fred Hickman was trying to do too. I'm sorry about all of that.

One's family is the most important thing in life. I look at it this way: One of these days I'll be over in a hospital somewhere with four walls around me. And the only people who'll be with me will be my family.

I have had the faith of a mustard seed, and I've been able to move mountains, ... And there are other mountains, and I'll be able to move them.

I will never submit to fight beneath that banner with a Negro by my side. Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback

I congratulate Mr. Lott and Mr. Daschle, ... I would never have thought it could be done.

She knows I love the Senate, ... She wants me to continue to serve the people, and she'll be with me. She'll be with me shoulder to shoulder.

Do not run a campaign that would embarrass your mother.

The Klan is needed today as never before and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia. It is necessary that the order be promoted immediately and in every state in the Union. Will you please inform me as to the possibilities of rebuilding the Klan realm of W. Va.

Congress should be approving a more robust homeland security bill,

Once the action is taken by Congress to pass this tax cut, that money is going out. There is no guesswork to that.

To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences.

We, unlike Nazi Germany or Mussolini's Italy, have never stopped being a nation of laws, not of men. But witness how men with motives and a majority can manipulate law to cruel and unjust ends.

This war is not necessary. We are truly sleepwalking through history.

I had seen his two daughters, but I was more interested in fiddle music at that point. As time went on, I became more interested in his daughters than in his fiddle playing.

That's what the Senate is about. It's the last bastion of minority rights, where a minority can be heard, where a minority can stand on its feet, one individual if necessary, and speak until he falls into the dust.

This incredible American family will undoubtedly once again demonstrate to the nation that they will endure -- and that it is how one lives and not how one dies that ultimately matters.

Mission accomplished? The mission in Iraq, as laid out by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, has failed.

I've given most of my life to serving the people of West Virginia, and it began here 59 years ago, ... six more years, six more years.

We ought to have a plan to bring our people home, ... I'm not suggesting any particular deadline, but I think our men and women ought to be brought home. The National Guard, in particular, ought to be here serving our country when we have storms like Katrina.

It is time to come home, America. Time to look within our own borders and within our own souls. There are many questions to be answered and many missions to accomplish right here on our own soil.

As one who believes in the death penalty, as one who has seen a public execution ... I certainly do not take a back seat to anyone when it comes to supporting legitimate victims' rights. But I am not for this amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

I have never seen such extreme partisanship, such bitter partisanship, and such forgetfulness of the fate of our fathers and of the Constitution.

Considering the events unfolding in the Gulf States and the heroic efforts still under way to save lives efforts that include our own West Virginia National Guard this is not the time for political announcements,

It is money, money, money! Not ideas, not principles, but money that reigns supreme in American politics.