Link Copied!
George W. Bush Quotes (1946-)
President, Politician
-100px.png)
-100px.png)
-100px.png)
-100px.png)
About George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born 6 July 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009, and the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election, becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than his opponent. He is the second president to have been the son of a former president, the first having been John Quincy Adams.
Best George W. Bush Quotes
Shortest
Earliest
Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful George W. Bush quotes.
“They misunderestimated me.”
- George W. Bush, 2000s, 2000)
George W. Bush Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of George W. Bush quotes by topic.
George W. Bush on United States 21 quotes
“If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us.”
George W. Bush on Freedom 11 quotes
View all 11 quotes on Freedom →George W. Bush on September 11 attacks 8 quotes
“I can hear you! I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!”
George W. Bush on War on terror 7 quotes
View all 7 quotes on War on terror →George W. Bush on United States Armed Forces 7 quotes
“From Bunker Hill to Baghdad, the men and women of American Armed Forces have been devoted guardians of our democracy.”
George W. Bush on American benevolence 6 quotes
“I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude and I believe most Iraqis express that.”
George W. Bush on Iraq 5 quotes
“The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people; and it is unacceptable to me.”
- George W. Bush, B)
George W. Bush on Texas 4 quotes
“You don't get everything you want. A dictatorship would be a lot easier.”
- George W. Bush, B)
George W. Bush on Bigotry 4 quotes
“Let us teach our children, and all Americans, to rise above brutality and bigotry and to be champions of liberty, human dignity, and equality.”
George W. Bush on Iraq War 4 quotes
“Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction.”
- George W. Bush, 2003)
George W. Bush on Terrorism 4 quotes
“I believe that Islam is a great religion that preaches peace. And I believe people who murder the innocent to achieve political objectives aren’t religious people.”
George W. Bush on War in Afghanistan (2001–2021) 4 quotes
“The Taliban has been given the opportunity to surrender all the terrorists in Afghanistan and to close down their camps and operations. Full warning has been given, and time is running out.”
- George W. Bush, 2001)
-100px.jpg)
What George W. Bush Said About Others
Discover personal opinions George W. Bush shared regarding contemporaries.
George W. Bush on Saddam Hussein 6 quotes
“I'm often asked why we're in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat. My administration, the Congress, and the United Nations saw the threat. And after 9/11, Saddam's regime posed a risk that the world could not afford to take. The world is safer because Saddam Hussein is no longer in power. And now the challenge is to help the Iraqi people build a democracy that fulfills the dreams of the nearly 12 million Iraqis who came out to vote in free elections last December.”
George W. Bush on Vladimir Putin 3 quotes
“People say, "He's the most popular guy in Russia." I say: "Yeah, I'd be popular too if I owned NBC."”
George W. Bush on Barack Obama 2 quotes
“President Obama's got plenty of critics, and I'm not going to be one.”
George W. Bush on Abdullah of Saudi Arabia 2 quotes
“The crown prince is a modest, gentle, almost shy man. He speaks softly, doesn't drink alcohol, and prays five times a day. In eight years, I never saw him without his traditional robes.”
George W. Bush on Winston Churchill 2 quotes
“In the late 1930s, as Britain refused to adapt to the new realities of war, Winston Churchill observed, "The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences."”
George W. Bush on Ronald Reagan 2 quotes
“This is a sad hour in the life of America … Ronald Reagan won America's respect with his greatness, and won its love with his goodness … he leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save … because of his leadership, the world laid to rest an era of fear and tyranny.”
George W. Bush on Al-Qaeda 2 quotes
“To begin to bring troops home before our commanders tell us we are ready … would mean surrendering the future of Iraq to al-Qaeda, risking a humanitarian catastrophe, and allowing the terrorists to establish a safe haven in Iraq and gain control of vast oil resources they could use to fund new attacks on America.”
George W. Bush on Fidel Castro
George W. Bush on Rembrandt
Quotes About George W. Bush
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about George W. Bush from others.
Abd Al-Bari 'Atwan on George W. Bush 2 quotes
“The American president George Bush, whom all agree is reckless and inexperienced, presented himself in his 'State of the Union address'... as a leader thirsty for bloodshed and for declaring war on half the world to satisfy a sense of vengeance and in submission to the sick Israeli incitement that stems from the interests of the Hebrew state – even if [satisfying] these interests comes at the expense of the destruction of the entire world. President Bush seeks to wage war against Iraq and Iran because they strive to obtain weapons of mass destruction. However, he does not see the weapons being stockpiled in the Israeli arsenal... He also does not see [the WMD] in Chinese, Russian, and Indian arsenals... President Bush's fiery address reminds us of the speeches of the Nazi, Adolf Hitler. His threatening of Iran and Iraq remind us of Hitler's threatening of Poland and Czechoslovakia. For this reason, the entire world must act to stop him and to put an end to his recklessness, before he drowns in "destructive wars that will make the first and second world wars seem modest."”
Marjorie Agosín on George W. Bush
“I feel somehow I am like in a little dictatorship here under disguise of this democracy. And George Bush is creating, has created, the ideology of fear, and saying, "If you do not vote for me, you will not be protected." And I think there is paranoia, the levels of alert, and that's exactly what General Pinochet did...The Patriot Act is just a disgrace to American faith in the world, and I am very frightened for this country.”
Bob Altemeyer on George W. Bush 4 quotes
“If some day George W. Bush is indicted for authorizing torture, you can bet your bottom dollar the high RWAs will howl to the heavens in protest. It won’t matter how extensive the torture was, how cruel and sickening it was, how many years it went on, how many prisoners died, how devious Bush was in trying to evade America’s laws and traditional stand against torture, or how many treaties the U.S. broke. Such an indictment would grind right up against the core of authoritarian followers, and they won’t have it. Maybe they’ll even say, “The president was busy running the war. He didn’t really know. It was all done by Rumsfeld and others.””
Mark Ames on George W. Bush 3 quotes
“The rage murder is new. It appeared under Reagan, during his cultural economic revolution, and it expanded in his aftermath. Reaganomics has ruled America ever since. For all of the Right's hysterical attacks on Clinton as a left-winger, the fact is that it was Clinton who administered a lethal injection to the welfare system with his Orwellian-named Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Under Clinton, Wall Street floruished with greater deregulation, globalization accelerated as never before, downsizings soared, and the anti-union, pro-shareholder corporate culture that Reagan launched went from being a radical experiment to a way of life. By the time George W. Bush took office, the cultural-economic transformation had become so deeply entrenched that what once would have been considered extreme and unacceptable was cheered and praised, even by those who suffered. The change was radical and traumatic, so much so that historians may look back at this time and wonder why there weren't more murders and rebellions, just as it is shocking today to consider how few slave rebellions there were.”
Bashar al-Assad on George W. Bush
“How can you blame now Bush for the one million Iraqi deaths since the war in Iraq in 2003?...I'm talking about the principle now, it's about the principle, the same principle, he attacked a sovereign country while I defend my country. If you want to use one standard it's one thing but if you want to do a double standard that's another thing...I talk to American audiences, so there must be analogy between the two things because it's about the logic that you used to explain something, it's not only about my answer. He attacked sovereign country while we are defending our country, he killed Iraqi people on their land, we are defending mainly against terrorists coming from different places in that world. This is our right.”
Matt Bai on George W. Bush
“The truth is that Bush was never anything close to the ogre or the imbecile his most fevered detractors insisted he was. Read Days of Fire, the excellent and exhaustive book on Bush's presidency by Peter Baker, my former colleague at the New York Times. Bush comes off there as compassionate and well-intentioned; a man who came into office under-prepared and overly reliant on his wily vice president and who found his footing only after making some tragically bad decisions. Baker's Bush is a flawed character you find yourself rooting for, even as you wince at his judgment. But as is the way in modern Washington, it was never enough for Bush's political opponents that he was miscast or misguided. He had to be something worse than that — or, more precisely, a lot of things worse. He had to be the most catastrophic president ever, in the history of ever. He had to be a messianic war criminal. Or a corporate plant looking to trade blood for oil. Or a doofus barely able to construct a sentence. That was the way Will Ferrell portrayed Bush in a one-man Broadway show that, for a while after Bush's departure, thrilled the enlightened set. For a lot of urban Americans, the ones who bought little books of Bush's mangled syntax at the Barnes & Noble checkout line, Ferrell's comic version of Bush became more real than the man himself. You know something's wrong when the most nuanced portrayal of a political figure comes from Oliver Stone.”
Peter Baker on George W. Bush
Peter Baker highlights George W. Bush's underappreciated legacy in combating AIDS and aiding Africa, arguing it's a significant achievement overshadowed by the Iraq War.
“Bush did more to stop AIDS and more to help Africa than any president before or since. He took on one of the world's biggest problems in a big, bold way and it changed the course of a continent. If it weren't for Iraq, it would be one of the main things history would remember about Bush, and it still should be part of any accounting of his presidency.”
Harry Belafonte on George W. Bush
Ben Bernanke on George W. Bush
“The increasing hostility of the Republicans to the Fed and to me personally troubled me, particularly since I had been appointed by a Republican president who had supported our actions during the crisis. I tried to listen carefully and accept thoughtful criticisms. But it seemed to me that the crisis had helped to radicalize large parts of the Republican Party.”
CounterPunch on George W. Bush
“Whereas the George W. Bush administration in the run up to the Iraq War successfully manufactured consent amongst a large swath of the US public by scaring them over false claims about “weapons of mass destruction,” the Trump administration doesn't even hide the fact that its foreign policy is motivated by advancing the US economic interests.”
Jamelle Bouie on George W. Bush
“It is frankly maddening to see anyone treat the former president as if he has the moral authority to speak on extremism, division and the crises facing our democracy. His critique of the Trump movement is not wrong, but it is fatally undermined by his own conduct in office. In his eight years as president, George W. Bush launched two destructive wars (including one on the basis of outright lies), embraced torture, radically expanded the power of the national security state and defended all of it by dividing the public into two camps. You were either with him or you were against him. As much as he has been rehabilitated in the eyes of many Americans — as much as his defenders might want to separate him and his administration from Donald Trump — the truth is that Bush is one of the leading architects of our present crisis. We may not be able to hold him accountable, but we certainly shouldn’t forget his starring role in making this country more damaged and dysfunctional than it ought to be.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski on George W. Bush
“[President George W. Bush] has a vision which can be described with two other words: Manichaean paranoia ... the notion that he is leading the forces of good against the empire of evil, that in that setting, the fact that we are morally superior justifies us committing immoral acts. And that is a very dangerous posture for the country that is the number one global power. ... The fact is he squandered our credibility, our legitimacy, and even respect for our power.”
Disputed Quotes
Quotes attributed to George W. Bush that are questionable.
“The problem with the French is that they don't have a word for "entrepreneur."”
“We're not going to have any casualties.”
“I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did, and then God would tell me, George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq... And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East. And by God I'm gonna do it.”
“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper!”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to George W. Bush
“Numerous remarks that were previously attributed (in some cases correctly) to Dan Quayle”
About George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born 6 July 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009, and the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. He is the eldest son of Barbara and George H. W. Bush. He married Laura Welch in 1977 and ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives shortly thereafter. He was elected president in 2000 after a close and controversial election, becoming the fourth president to be elected while receiving fewer popular votes nationwide than his opponent. He is the second president to have been the son of a former president, the first having been John Quincy Adams.