Dick Murphy Quotes

I would rather have a full term in the Senate—a place in which I would feel more consciously able to discharge the duties required, and where there is more chance to make a reputation, and less danger of losing it than four years of the presidency.

My goal was never to get re-elected.

I'm not serving in office because I desperately needed 99 new friends in the U.S. Senate.

I love being the mayor. I want to be the mayor forever.

I grew up thinking that if I wanted to go be prime minister, I could.

I have no ambitions to be a cabinet minister, or prime minister. I wouldn't wish being prime minister on my worst enemy.

I'm not part of the friends-and-family club; I'm not part of the pay-to-play club; I'm not looking to get re-elected. I'm not looking to go to another office and fill my campaign coffers. I don't need any friends in Albany except the people of the state.

There is absolutely no way that I would enter that world. I would never run for office.

I am not in Washington as a statesman. I am there as a very well paid messenger boy doing your errands. My chief occupation is going around with a forked stick picking up little fragments of patronage for my constituents.

When it comes to listening to my constituents or to the governor's staff, who are more interested in their pet projects and their government cars, I'll vote for my constituents every time.

[Warren] Harding didn't like being a Senator; he liked being in the Senate.

You wouldn’t need term limits if these [political] jobs don’t pay anything.

When I was a young man, I used to dream maybe someday I could be an alderman. Instead of that I became an attorney general, a senator, a vice president, a Democratic nominee.

My childhood dream was to be prime minister.

Having a path to elected office was never the goal for me.

I want to become prime minister.

It would be wonderful to be a member of the United States Senate.

Jesus was too smart to ever run for public office. That's what Jesus would do.

No one should be appointed to political office if he is a seeker after it.

I really don't think we've become a plutocracy, but I worry about the enormous influence that money has in a democracy such as ours.

I have absolutely no political ambitions.

Politics is far more complex and difficult than other professions, as it involves takeover of your own personal life.

I am not tied to the broken political machine, and I did not aspire to climb the ranks of the Cook County Democratic Party to be the party boss.

I mean getting into parliament was quite an achievement in itself and then I have to pinch myself at the thought of actually running a department.

Nobody has a cakewalk to become governor.