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John Ashcroft Quotes (1942-)
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About John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born 9 May 1942) was the 79th Attorney General of the United States; he is now a federal lobbyist.
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful John Ashcroft quotes.
βThe objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.β
βIt is not enough that we have a guilty defendant. We must have an innocent system as well.β
βA trustee has a responsibility to guard the assets of others with a higher degree of care than he does his own.β
βHow sad, that the group with the most access to the truth chose in several strategic instances to look the other way.β
βTo me, failure is not fatal unless you quit; getting knocked down is not embarrassing unless you allow it to keep you down.β
βThe goal of terror is not traditional territorial enlargement; rather the war target of the terrorist is the dismemberment of the will of the community it terrorizes.β
βIt wasn't that people were antagonistic; it was more that they were accustomed to doing their work in a certain way, and change always causes some people to be uncomfortable.β
βSimply put, international terrorism made international cooperation mandatory rather than elective. Collective security has become the only real security against the hydra-headed monster of international terror.β
βDoing what is right in the face of adversity is not always easy or popular. Critics may assail you, but the critics don't always realize what they don't know or don't understand, because they don't have access to all the information.β
βUnique among the nations, America recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no king but Jesus.β
βI decided this early on at Justice: if the traditional way was the most effective way of doing something, then we'd maintain it. But if it was not functioning at optimum levels, we would be doing the country a disservice by continuing to do things "like we've always done them."β
βTo those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.β
βThrough it all, I've learned to trust that God does indeed have a plan and purpose for me. Trust doesn't come into play when you can figure everything out; that's mere reason. Trust operates when you can't understand why circumstances or events happen. That's where it takes faith to believe that God knows what is best for our lives.β
βI'm convinced that faith is a matter of inspiration, not a matter of imposition. It is something a person models rather than mandates. Faith does not impose itself on other people. Imposition usually sacrifices somebody else; it seeks to injure or extort others. This is what the terrorist does in an attempt to impose his religion on the world.β
βSoldiers defending a country at war are not subject to the rules of procedure designed for court trials. For example, if a soldier encounters an enemy, under internationally agreed upon rules of war, that soldier can take whatever action is necessary to protect himself and neutralize his enemy, whether it involves capturing and detaining the enemy or killing him on the spot.β
βPolitics disabuses a person of the notion that you can please everybody. It is an inescapable fact that people will always have different opinions, and some people are going to disagree. Sooner or later, a person constructs his or her own "platform" and stands on it, regardless of what others think, say, or do. It is also true that some people delight in another person's demise.β
βWe must remain constantly vigilant. We dare not underestimate our enemy. Al Qaeda is committed to the destruction of America, and they are in it for the long haul. They are much smarter than many give them credit for being, and they are definitely much more patient than the pace of our fast-food society conditions us to be. Their commitment does not depend on bin Laden or any other single leader.β
βI have to chuckle sometimes when I am painted as "hard-nosed." In truth, our Justice Department wasn't nearly as aggressive as Roosevelt's. And our respect for civil liberties was far more extensive than the response following Pearl Harbor. Yes, we were tough, but we always operated within the law; it was never our policy or practice to detain any noncombatant without charges. In our conduct, we never approached the limits of the law as closely as Roosevelt did.β
John Ashcroft Quotes by Topic
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John Ashcroft on Religiousness
βCivilized peopleβMuslims, Christians, and Jewsβall understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator.β
John Ashcroft on Clarity
βSince lives and liberties depend upon clarity, not obfuscation, and reason, not hyperbole, let me take this opportunity today to be clear: The Justice Department is working to protect American lives while preserving American liberties.β
What John Ashcroft Said About Others
Discover personal opinions John Ashcroft shared regarding contemporaries.
John Ashcroft on Roe v. Wade 2 quotes
β[F]or nearly 200 years, Madisonβs masterpiece made no mention of abortion. It was an area, instead, left to the States and to the people. But all that changed 25 years ago tomorrow, when Justice Harry Blackmun and the Court nationalized-indeed, revolutionized-the issue of abortion in Roe v. Wade. The Blackmun decision has sparked a quarter century of private reflection and public debate. It happens that abortion has been made the most divisive moral question of the day. Abortion strikes at the very core of who we are as a people and who we are as a Nation. It challenged us to define life and to measure liberty-difficult things both. And yet it is an issue that will not go away, and so it demands of us civil debate and reasoned discourse.β
Quotes About John Ashcroft
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Edwidge Danticat on John Ashcroft
Amy Goodman on John Ashcroft
βFormer attorney general John Ashcroft mocked librarians and the ALA, accusing them and other administration critics of fueling "baseless hysteria" about the government's use of the PATRIOT Act to pry into the public's reading habits.β
Misattributed Quotes
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About John Ashcroft
John David Ashcroft (born 9 May 1942) was the 79th Attorney General of the United States; he is now a federal lobbyist.