Mitt Romney quotes

“Leadership - leadership is about taking responsibility, not making excuses.”

— Mitt Romney

“America cannot continue to lead the family of nations around the world if we suffer the collapse of the family here at home.”

— Mitt Romney

“And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, 'It could be worse.' It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse? Of course not. What defines us as Americans is our unwavering conviction that we know it must be better.”

— Mitt Romney

“And the American people are the greatest people in the world. What makes America the greatest nation in the world is the heart of the American people: hardworking, innovative, risk-taking, God- loving, family-oriented American people.”

— Mitt Romney

“All the laws and legislation in the world will never heal this world like the loving hearts and arms of mothers and fathers. If every child could drift to sleep feeling wrapped in the love of their family - and God's love - this world would be a far more gentle and better place.”

— Mitt Romney

“Christianity is not the faith of the complacent, the comfortable or of the timid. It demands and creates heroic souls like Wesley, Wilberforce, Bonhoeffer, John Paul the Second, and Billy Graham. Each showed, in their own way, the relentless and powerful influence of the message of Jesus Christ.”

— Mitt Romney

“Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution. And whether the cause is justice for the persecuted, compassion for the needy and the sick, or mercy for the child waiting to be born, there is no greater force for good in the nation than Christian conscience in action.”

— Mitt Romney

“Three years ago, this week, a newly elected President Obama faced the American people and he said, look, if I can't turn this economy around in three years, I'll be looking at a one-term proposition, and we're here to collect! You know the results. It's been 35 months of unemployment above 8 percent.”

— Mitt Romney

“I have never once regretted missing a business opportunity so that I could be with my children and grandchildren.”

— Mitt Romney

“Now, let me be clear. The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle to grave assurance that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise the most goodies and the most benefits, I'm not your president. You have that president today.”

— Mitt Romney

“In the richest country in the history of the world, this Obama economy has crushed the middle class. Family income has fallen by $4,000, but health insurance premiums are higher, food prices are higher, utility bills are higher, and gasoline prices have doubled. Today more Americans wake up in poverty than ever before.”

— Mitt Romney

“I feel very deeply about the need to respect and tolerate people of different social - or sexual orientation. But at the same time, I believe marriage should be preserved as an institution for one man and one woman.”

— Mitt Romney

“Mom and Dad were married 64 years. And if you wondered what their secret was, you could have asked the local florist - because every day Dad gave Mom a rose, which he put on her bedside table. That's how she found out what happened on the day my father died - she went looking for him because that morning, there was no rose.”

— Mitt Romney

“People from both political parties have long recognized that welfare without work creates negative incentives that lead to permanent poverty. It robs people of self-esteem.”

— Mitt Romney

“I spent my whole life in the private sector, 25 years in the private sector. I understand that when government takes more money out of the hands of people, it makes it more difficult for them to buy things. If they can't buy things, the economy doesn't grow. If the economy doesn't grow, we don't put Americans to work.”

— Mitt Romney

“When it comes to pinning blame, pin the tail on the donkeys.”

— Mitt Romney

“Business and growing jobs is about taking risk, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but always striving. It is about dreams. Usually, it doesn't work out exactly as you might have imagined. Steve Jobs was fired at Apple. He came back and changed the world.”

— Mitt Romney

“I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love.”

— Mitt Romney

“I could have possibly beaten Senator McCain in the primary. Then I could have been the candidate who lost to Barack Obama.”

— Mitt Romney

“Conservatism has had from its inception vigorously positive, intellectually rigorous agenda and thinking. That agenda should have in my three pillars: strengthen the economy, strengthen our security, and strengthen our families.”

— Mitt Romney

“We believe in individual initiative, personal responsibility, opportunity, freedom, small government, the Constitution. These principles, these American principles are key to getting our economy back to being successful and leading the world.”

— Mitt Romney

“I stand ready to lead us down a different path where we're lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success.”

— Mitt Romney

“President Obama's view of a free economy is to send your money to his friends. My vision for a free enterprise economy is to return entrepreneurship and genius and creativity to the American people!”

— Mitt Romney

“Dependency is death to initiative, to risk-taking and opportunity. It's time to stop the spread of government dependency and fight it like the poison it is.”

— Mitt Romney

“What we have, what we wish we had - ambitions fulfilled, ambitions disappointed, investments won, investments lost, elections won, elections lost - these things may occupy our attention, but they do not define us.”

— Mitt Romney

“My view is that marriage is a relationship between a man and a woman. That's the position I've had for some time, and I don't intend to make any adjustments at this point... Or ever, by the way.”

— Mitt Romney

“Ronald Reagan was a president of strength. His philosophy was a philosophy of strength - a strong military, a strong economy and strong families.”

— Mitt Romney

“My mom and dad gave their kids the greatest gift of all - the gift of unconditional love. They cared deeply about who we would be, and much less about what we would do.”

— Mitt Romney

“If I am elected President of these United States, I will work with all my energy and soul to restore that America, to lift our eyes to a better future. That future is our destiny. That future is out there. It is waiting for us. Our children deserve it, our nation depends upon it, the peace and freedom of the world require it.”

— Mitt Romney

“Our plans protect freedom and opportunity, and our blueprint is the Constitution of the United States.”

— Mitt Romney