Bob Dole Quotes

We senators love to make tough speeches but hate to make tough votes.

Mayors make tough decisions; Senators make tough speeches.

As a legislator, I was elected to make the tough decisions and produce solutions to the problems facing our country.

Congress should get the job done.

We like to make tough speeches, but we don't like to make tough choices.

It is in the nature of the Congressional animal to be overly concerned with the backwaters of public policy and too little disposed to make hard decisions on mainstream national issues.

Government is about hard choices.

There is no question on earth on which a Senator of the United States may not want to address himself.

The job of government is to govern. They ought to get on with it.

If we do not make tough decisions now, future Americans will have to make even tougher ones.

I leave it up to the government to make good decisions for Americans.

You can make tough decisions that I believe voters for years have asked us to do.

My message to Washington is very simple. Face reality. Be leaders. Demonstrate accountability. Engage in principle compromise. And understand your job is to find solutions.

The dominant color of politics is gray; difficult choices and compromise are required at almost every step of the journey toward a major new program.

You've got to have a theme if you're going to get Congress to do something difficult.

Members of Congress often have to have testimony to hang their hat on if they wish to do something for you or do something for the country.

We're frightened by the interest groups. We act like silly nincompoops. We can't make cuts that cause some sting. We can not even do a thing.

Politicians are ambitious not to make important decisions but to say important things.

It's one thing to make the speeches. It's another to make the tough decisions.

You cannot make elected officials … do what they will not do.

I don't care what kind of speeches you make as long as you don't vote against the appropriations.

We're going through an era of feel-good politics in which talking about tough issues and making tough decisions are not the way to get elected.

The Congress must regain the will to govern.

This is not just our battle. It is an issue for opinion makers outside the government, it is a battle for the Congress—to keep making the distinction between the immediate and the important.

He was born to be a senator. He never said anything important, and he always said it sonorously.