Everett Dirksen Quotes (5 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Everett Dirksen: 5 quotes 0 likes

Famous Everett Dirksen Quotes

“When I face an issue of great import that cleaves both constituents and colleagues, I always take the same approach. I engage in deep deliberation and quiet contemplation. I wait to the last available minute and then I always vote with the losers. Because, my friend, the winners never remember and the losers never forget.”

Everett Dirksen

As quoted in Business Wit & Wisdom (2005) by Richard S. Zera, p. 164

“I am a man of fixed and unbending principles, the first of which is to be flexible at all times.”

Everett Dirksen

As quoted in Caught Between the Dog and the Fireplug, or, How to Survive Public Service (2001) by Kenneth H. Ashworth, p. 11

“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you're talking real money.”

Everett Dirksen

Although often quoted, it seems Dirksen never actually said this. The Dirksen Congressional Research Center made an extensive search https://web.archive.org/web/20140127115225/http://www.dirksencenter.org:80/print_emd_billionhere.htm when fully 25% of enquiries to them were about the quotation. They could find Dirksen did say "a billion here, a billion there", and things close to that, but not the "pretty soon you're talking real money" part. They had one gentleman report to them he had asked Dirksen about it on an airplane trip and received the reply: "Oh, I never said that. A newspaper fella misquoted me once, and I thought it sounded so good that I never bothered to deny it."
The Yale Book of Quotations cites a similar statement in The New York Times on Jan. 10, 1938: "Well, now, about this new budget. It’s a billion here and a billion there, and by and by it begins to mount up into money." https://books.google.com/books?id=ck6bXqt5shkC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22fred%20r.%20shapiro%22%20yale%20book%20of%20quotations&pg=PA206#v=onepage&q=%22everett%20m.%20dirksen%22&f=false
Misattributed

“Stronger than all the armies is an idea that's time has come. … The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing in government, in education, and in employment. It will not be stayed or denied. It is here!”

Everett Dirksen

Paraphrasing Victor Hugo when speaking about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Civil_Rights_Filibuster_Ended.htm (10 June 1964)
1960s