John R. Bolton Quotes

You know, as somebody who writes op-eds and appears on the television, I appreciate as well as anybody that… there is a limit to what that accomplishes.

You don’t need to spend tens of millions of dollars on political consultants to tell you what you think when you already know what you think.

When you have a regime that would be happier in the afterlife than in this life, this is not a regime that is subject to classic theories of deterrence.

Well, you could take several stories off the buildings of most U.S. government agencies and we’d all probably be better for it too.

There’s no religious test under the constitution. That’s what it says. Period.

There is no such thing as the United Nations.

There is no patriotic obligation to help advance the career of a politician who is otherwise pursuing interests that are fundamentally antithetical to your values. That’s not the call of patriotism.

There is no excuse for waste, fraud, and abuse in the Defense Department budget.

The U.N. is one of many competitors in a marketplace of global problem solving.

The Nobel Peace Prize has become hopelessly politicized. I think it cheapens the prize itself.

Reform is not a one-night stand.

Politicians, like generals, have a tendency to fight the last war.

People say you favor assassination, what do you think war is? Except that it’s assassination on a much larger scale, a much more horrific scale.

People don’t like to talk about victory and defeat anymore.

Obviously, you make preparations before you engage in any meeting.

North Korea is going to get away with keeping its nuclear weapons.

Negotiation is not a policy. It’s a technique. It’s something you use when it’s to your advantage, and something that you don’t use when it’s not to your advantage.

My priority is to give the United States the kind of influence it should have.

Maybe it’s my libertarian philosophy: but being in government is hard.

Just as the Security Council was largely irrelevant to the great struggle of the last half of the twentieth century – freedom against Communism – so too it is largely on the sidelines in our contemporary struggles against international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.