Everett Dirksen Quotes

Someone has said the best nursing home is the U.S. Senate.

Charles Miller cannot bring down my government.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.'

In the U.S. Senate a quorum consists of the chairman of the Committee on Finance and a messenger from the White House.

The reason I know it [our economy] is strong is that it has survived Congress. If the economy can survive Congress, I am confident that it will thrive eventually.

The floor of the U.S. Senate isn't a place that usually sees a lot of drama.

Every time we have an election, we get in worse men and the country keeps right on going. Times have proven only one thing and that is you can't ruin this country even with politics.

They say you can never step in the same river twice. New water flows in, replacing the old and continually renewing the river. The Senate is the same.

Congress is best viewed from a distance - the farther the better - because up close, it is truly ugly.

God reigns, and the Government at Washington still lives!

Sloths move at the speed of congressional debate but with greater deliberation and less noise.

You see, in Washington they have these bodies, Senate and the House of Representatives. That is for the convenience of the visitors. If there is nothing funny happening in one, there is sure to be in the other, and in case one body passes a good bill, why, the other can see it in time and kill it.

Write to your newspaper. Call your Member of Congress. Email President Obama. Speak out for a cleaner, more stable future for all of us.

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

We are a revitalized tribe. After every major upheaval, we have been able to gather together as a people to rebuild a community and a government. Individually and collectively, Cherokee people possess an extraordinary ability to face down adversity and continue moving forward. We are able to do that because our culture, though certainly diminished, has sustained us since time inmemorial. This Cherokee culture is a well-kept secret.

Move at your own pace, don't be afraid - and know that it's going to be okay.

And I'd like to say to the Senate, I hope you will say yes to a stronger American democracy in the year 2000.

Democracy is good for world peace.

The Government chose to give peace a chance. The Government chose to do something to achieve it.

Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school.

You have to be an optimist to be in politics.

You wonder why your government's completely broken? We lurch from deadline to deadline, and it's on purpose really. We do deadline to deadline because ... 'we've got to go. It's spring break, we're going to be late for spring break, and we've got to go, so we've got to finish this up before we go.'

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.

All attempts to destroy democracy by terrorism will fail. It must be business as usual.

How our government works... it doesn't.