Ron Paul

When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.
– Ron Paul

It’s time American soldiers quit being killed and it’s time for us to quit killing a lot of other
people who have not attacked us.
– Ron Paul

One thing is clear: The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay
nearly half of everything they earn to the government.
– Ron Paul

9/11 had nothing to do with Iraq. 15 of the 19 (hijackers) came from Saudi Arabia so they’re
our bosom buddies and we’re their best friends.
– Ron Paul

I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free
society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of
all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don’t need a national ID card.
– Ron Paul

I don’t want us to worry about the borders between North and South Korea and between Iraq
and Syria, I want to worry about our own border.
– Ron Paul

I also want to abolish the Federal Reserve… The value of our dollar and the level of our
interest rates are not supposed to be manipulated by a few members of the power elite
meeting secretly in a secret palace.
– Ron Paul

By the way, when I say cut taxes, I don’t mean fiddle with the code. I mean abolish the
income tax and the IRS, and replace them with nothing.
– Ron Paul

Mr. Speaker, I once again find myself compelled to vote against the annual budget resolution
for a very simple reason: It makes government bigger.
– Ron Paul

We should restore the gold standard (backing dollars with gold) which Nixon ended in 1971.
– Ron Paul

Few Americans understand that all government action is inherently coercive. If nothing else,
government action requires taxes. If taxes were freely paid, they wouldn’t be called taxes,
they’d be called donations. If we intend to use the word freedom in an honest way, we
should have the simple integrity to give it real meaning: Freedom is living without government
coercion. So when a politician talks about freedom for this group or that, ask yourself
whether he is advocating more government action or less.
– Ron Paul

Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.
– Ron Paul

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has
three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may
benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans.
– Ron Paul

No matter how well intentioned, an authoritarian government always abuses its powers.
– Ron Paul

In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not
federal bureaucrats.
– Ron Paul

It is not we non-interventionists who are isolationsists. The real isolationists are those who
impose sanctions and embargoes on countries and peoples across the globe because they
disagree with the internal and foreign policies of their leaders. The real isolationists are those
who choose to use force overseas to promote democracy, rather than seek change through
diplomacy, engagement, and by setting a positive example.
– Ron Paul

It’s a mistake to think that poor people get the benefit from the welfare system. It’s a total
fraud. Most welfare go to the rich of this country: The military-industrial complex, the bankers,
the foreign dictators, it’s totally out of control. This idea that the government has services or
goods that they can pass on is a complete farce. Governments have nothing. They can’t
create anything, they never have. All they can do is steal from one group and give it to
another at the destruction of the principles of freedom, and we ought to challenge that
concept.
– Ron Paul

Another term for preventive war is aggressive war – starting wars because someday somebody
might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition.
– Ron Paul

Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a
tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax
hikers.
– Ron Paul

Individuals are responsible for their own actions. Government cannot and should not try and
protect us from ourselves.
– Ron Paul

We can achieve much more in peace than we can ever achieve in these needless,
unconstitutional, undeclared wars.
– Ron Paul

How can I run for office and say I want to be a weak president? We need a strong president,
strong enough to resist the temptation of taking power the president shouldn’t have.
– Ron Paul

Don’t steal – the government hates competition.
– Ron Paul

I voted against the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA. It’s a bureaucratic
monster.
– Ron Paul

Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country and giving it to the rich
people of a poor country.
– Ron Paul

In the American political lexicon, “change” always means more of the same: more
government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more
unnecessary war, and more centralization of power.
– Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto

I’d like to think of myself as the flavor of the decade.
– Ron Paul

We need to take away the government’s money power. The banking industry needs its
welfare check ended. The dollar’s soundness depends on its being untied from the machine
that can make an infinite number of copies of dollars and reduce their value to zero.
– Ron Paul, End the Fed

Economically, and historically, paper is not money. It can’t be money. It’s only money
because we’re forced to use it because there is a residual trust in the pieces of paper that
we carry around because at one time it did have real value… History shows that people have
chosen gold first and probably silver second. They’d rather have cigarettes than pieces of
paper.
– Ron Paul, 1983

War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war
expenditures.
– Ron Paul

Astonishingly, American taxpayers now will be forced to finance a multi-billion dollar jobs
program in Iraq. Suddenly the war is about jobs. We export our manufacturing jobs to Asia,
and now we plan to export our welfare jobs to Iraq, all at the expense of the poor and the
middle class here at home.
– Ron Paul

It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central
banking.
– Ron Paul

I’m convinced that you never have to give up liberties to be safe. I think you’re less safe
when you give up your liberties.
– Ron Paul

I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, it actually weakens our national
defense. I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we’re
fretting day in and day and night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air
force.
– Ron Paul

The biggest threat to our privacy is the government. We must drastically limit the ability of
government to collect and store data regarding citizens’ personal matters.
– Ron Paul

We need a new method to prioritize our spending. It’s called the Constitution of the United
States.
– Ron Paul

Under no circumstances should the U.S. again go to war as the result of a resolution that
comes from an unelected, foreign body, such as the United Nations.
– Ron Paul

We can continue to fund and fight no-win police actions around the globe, or we can refocus
on securing America and bring the troops home.
– Ron Paul

We have allowed our nation to be over-taxed and over-regulated and over-run by
bureaucrats. The Founders would be ashamed of us for what we are putting up with.
– Ron Paul

All initiation of force is a violation of someone else’s rights, whether initiated by an individual
or the state, for the benefit of an individual or group of individuals, even if it’s supposed to be
for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals.
– Ron Paul

One day I walked into an operating room, to just be an observant, which we would do
generally, as a medical resident. They were performing this hysterectomy, which was a
caesarean section. And they lifted out a fetus that weighted approximately 2 pounds, and it
was breathing and crying. And it was put in a bucket and set in the corner of the room, and
everybody in the room just pretended that they didn’t hear it. And the baby died. And I
walked out of that room a different person.
– Ron Paul

A nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to fight terrorists
abroad when our own front door is left unlocked.
– Ron Paul

There is but one special interest that we should be working for, and that would solve just
about all of our problems, and that is our liberty.
– Ron Paul

I don’t even like big government in Washington, let alone having super government over our
federal government, such as a North American Union, or the United Nations, or any of these
organizations. It just means more government and more attack on individual sovereignty,
which is the real issue.
– Ron Paul

The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their
relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers.
– Ron Paul

The do-good liberal who said we have to take care of everybody – and they are well
intentioned – the more debt they run up to give to the poor, the poorer the people get
because they cannot keep up.
– Ron Paul

We need to understand the more government spends, the more freedom is lost. Instead of
simply debating spending levels, we ought to be debating whether the departments,
agencies, and programs funded by the budget should exist at all.
– Ron Paul

I had the privilege of practicing medicine in the early ’60s, before we had any government. It
worked rather well, and there was nobody on the street suffering with no medical care.
– Ron Paul

Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come.
– Ron Paul

I think a submarine is a very worthwhile weapon. I believe we can defend ourselves with
submarines and all our troops back at home. This whole idea that we have to be in 130
countries and 900 bases… is an old-fashioned idea.
– Ron Paul

Think of what happened after 9/11, the minute before there was any assessment, there was
glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq, and so the war drums beat.
– Ron Paul

We have a lot of goodness in this country. And we should promote it, but never through the
barrel of a gun. We should do it by setting good standards, motivating people and have them
want to emulate us.
– Ron Paul

Since its creation in 1913, the FED has presided over a 98% decline in the dollar’s purchasing
power.
– Ron Paul

Believe me, the intellectual revolution is going on, and that has to come first before you see
the political changes. That’s where I’m very optimistic.
– Ron Paul

Our foolish policy in Iraq invites terrorist attacks against U.S. territory and incites the Islamic
fundamentalists against us.
– Ron Paul

To me, foreign aid is taking money from poor people in this country and giving it to rich
people in poor countries… Look at what’s the result of all the foreign aid we gave to Egypt. I
mean, their dicator, that we pumped up, we’ve spent millions of dollars and now there’s a
more hostile regime in Egypt and that’s what’s happening all around Israel.
– Ron Paul

How did we win the election in the year 2000? We talked about a humble foreign policy: No
nation-building; don’t police the world. That’s conservative, it’s Republican, it’s pro-American.
It follows the Founding Fathers. And, besides, it follows the Constitution.
– Ron Paul

You want to get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let’s just get rid of all the drug laws.
– Ron Paul

Not only is inflation the result of the political demands of special interest groups, the career
desires of politicians, and the ill-conceived motives of economists, it was also clearly
unconstitutional. Money of real value, gold or silver, was clearly intended by the Founding
Fathers.
– Ron Paul, Gold, Peace, and Prosperity: The Birth of a New Currency

Our government doesn’t always tell us the truth. That’s how we go to war. And that’s how
we get in… They build up the fear, just like after crisis, the financial crisis. The whole world
would end unless we bail out all the rich people and bail out Wall Street and bail out all the
bankers. But people now, in a very healthy way, are very skeptical of what the official
pronouncements are of the government. And I consider that very good.
– Ron Paul, 2011

It’s time we brought our troops home from around the world. We need to come home from
Korea. We need to come home from Japan and we need to come home from Europe. We need
to spend all that money here in this country.
– Ron Paul, 2008

One only needs to reflect on the dramatic decline in the value of the dollar that has taken
place since the Fed was established in 1913. The goods and services you could buy for $1.00
in 1913 now cost nearly $21.00. Another way to look at this is from the perspective of the
purchasing power of the dollar itself. It has fallen to less than $0.05 of its 1913 value. We
might say that the government and its banking cartel have together stolen $0.95 of every
dollar as they have pursued a relentlessly inflationary policy.
– Ron Paul, End the Fed

Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.
– Ron Paul

Our country’s founders cherished liberty, not democracy.
– Ron Paul

Everyone assumes America must play the leading role in crafting some settlement or
compromise between the Israelis and the Palestinians. But Jefferson, Madison, and
Washington explicitly warned against involving ourselves in foreign conflicts.
– Ron Paul

I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the
American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas.
– Ron Paul

Some supporters of the war use their religion to justify the war. Evidently, I’ve been reading
from a different Bible.
– Ron Paul

During the last campaign I knew what was happening. You know, they mocked me for my
foreign policy and they laughed at my monetary policy. No more. No more.
– Ron Paul

You can have somebody saying the president can do anything he wants, that civil liberties
don’t mean anything, but defending economic liberties. If you say the general-welfare clause
overrides the powers enumerated in Article 1, Section 8, you can probably take that
document and make it say anything you want. But there’s so much in the Constitution that
gives the responsibility to the Congress. The president’s not supposed to go to war, or be in
charge of taxing and spending. The Founders thought the Congress would always remain the
number one of the three branches – that’s why it’s high on a hill, above the Supreme Court,
above the White House.
– Ron Paul

Maybe we ought to consider a Golden Rule in foreign policy: Don’t do to other nations what
we don’t want happening to us. We endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder why
they get upset with us?
– Ron Paul