1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. John Ashcroft

John Ashcroft Quotes

John David Ashcroft is an American attorney and politician who served as the 79th U.S. Attorney General , in the George W. Bush Administration. He later founded The Ashcroft Group, a Washington D.C. lobbying firm.

Ashcroft previously served as Attorney General of Missouri , and as the 50th Governor of Missouri , having been elected for two consecutive terms in succession , and he also served as a U.S. Senator from Missouri . He had early appointments in Missouri state government and was mentored by John Danforth. He has written several books about political and moral issues.

His son, Jay Ashcroft, is also a politician. Jay currently serves as Secretary of State of Missouri.

✵ 9. May 1942
John Ashcroft photo
John Ashcroft: 32   quotes 0   likes

Famous John Ashcroft Quotes

“To me, capital punishment is a form of societal self-defense. It should not be employed indiscriminately, but in cases of the most heinous crimes, the death penalty may be the only appropriate punishment. Some people believe it is right to take a life to save the life of someone else, but they would not vote to take the life of a convicted criminal, no matter how horrible the crime. Others believe that killing another person for any reason is simply wrong. I respect those opinions, but I disagree with them. I'm convinced that government has a duty to promote community defense. The death penalty, when applied in appropriate cases, can be a strong deterrent to crime. It is certainly a deterrent to the convicted criminal sentenced to death, and it is also a deterrent to other potential capital offenders.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 112

“I was deeply grieved and suddenly depleted by a draining weariness. This day had been a nightmare, and I had not yet been asleep.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 12

“We 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 292

“Sometimes the act of walking in the face of the elements helps us come to grips with reality. Or it simply exhausts us to the point of seeing the futility of resisting reality and the futility of denial.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 11

“Some people in our country seem more concerned about respecting the dignity and privacy of criminals and terrorists than they are about having an airport full of people obliterated, or a completely booked hotel blown to bits. Perhaps they think, Let's not get so upset about attacks on our embassies or military bases. Maybe, they surmise, the terrorists have good reason for attacking us. We have no right to be harassing innocent people in our country. For some people, not even the grotesque images that filled our television screens after al Qaeda's blatant attacks on 9/11 seem enough to wake them out of their utopia feel-good world.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 259

“Through 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 32

John Ashcroft Quotes about people

“Politics 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 67

“To 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.”

John Ashcroft

Testimony to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee (6 December 2001)

“We need honest, reasoned debate; not fear-mongering. To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty; my message to you 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 192

“Do not allow your sorrow or your rage to become hostility toward people on the basis of their ethnicity or their religious views. That is unacceptable; it is out of bounds, and if you break the law, we will prosecute you for it.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 179

“I'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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 98

“It 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 91

John Ashcroft Quotes about war

“Since lives and liberties depend upon clarity, not obfuscation, and reason, not hyperbole, let me take this opportunity today to be clear: Each action taken by the Department of Justice, as well as the war crimes commissions considered by the president and the Department of Defense, is carefully drawn to target a narrow class of individuals- terrorists. Our legal powers are targeted at terrorists. Our investigation is focused on terrorists. Our prevention strategy targets the terrorist threat.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 192

“The last time I looked at September 11th, an American street was a war zone. There was a street in Virginia that was a war zone.”

John Ashcroft

Statement during a discussion with the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee in June 2003, as quoted in "Ashcroft wants powers expanded to fight terror" in The Washington Times (6 June 2003) http://www.washtimes.com/national/20030606-010401-2596r.htm

“Soldiers 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 181

“The 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 285

John Ashcroft Quotes

“Doing 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 229

Understanding

“(Allegedly) Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will not judge this kindly.”

John Ashcroft

On senior Bush officials discussing specific torture techniques, as quoted in "Sources: Top Bush Advisors Approved 'Enhanced Interrogation'" at ABC News (9 April 9 2008) http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=4583256

History , Housing

“I'm trying to think of all the reasons that are appropriate for me to refuse to answer that question.”

John Ashcroft

Response to a question from the House Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing to investigate interrogation techniques at Guantánamo Bay (July 2008)

Question , Thinking

“I 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."”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 90-91

Justice , Way , Country

“Unique 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.”

John Ashcroft

Bob Jones University Commencement (8 May 1999)

“A trustee has a responsibility to guard the assets of others with a higher degree of care than he does his own.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 31

“My family has never suggested to me that my identity or value to them depended on my station in life. I knew that they did not consider me any more or less valuable because I held some political office. They valued me as a husband and father, whether or not I won an election. Nor did they regard holding office on Capitol Hill or in the Missouri statehouse as the epitome of success. Quite the contrary, my family had endured numerous personal sacrifices because of my public positions.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 30

Life , Family , Success , Dependency

“It is not enough that we have a guilty defendant. We must have an innocent system as well.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 107

“To me, failure is not fatal unless you quit; getting knocked down is not embarrassing unless you allow it to keep you down.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 42

Failure

“Simply 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 265-266

“The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.”

John Ashcroft

Resignation letter to President George W. Bush, dated (2 November 2004)

“How sad, that the group with the most access to the truth chose in several strategic instances to look the other way.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 263

Truth , Sadness , Way

“I 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.”

John Ashcroft

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 178-179

Truth , Justice , Law , Painting

“Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you.”

John Ashcroft

As quoted in an interview with Cal Thomas (November 2001), he later indicated that the remarks "do not accurately reflect what I believe I said", as quoted in "Ashcroft Invokes Religion In U.S. War on Terrorism" in The Washington Post (20 February 2002) http://www.commondreams.org/headlines02/0220-03.htm

God , Faith , Religion

“The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say "well done."”

John Ashcroft

John Ashcroft, a British business executive (born 1948), as quoted in Sunday Telegraph (5 June 1988)
Misattributed

“I have to chuckle sometimes when I am painted as "hard-nosed."”

John Ashcroft

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.
Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 178-179

Painting

Similar authors

Les Brown photo
Les Brown 24
American politician
Pietro Mennea photo
Pietro Mennea 1
Italian sprinter and politician
Arnold Schwarzenegger photo
Arnold Schwarzenegger 52
actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heri…
Bertil Ohlin photo
Bertil Ohlin 11
Swedish economist and politician
Salvador Allende photo
Salvador Allende 16
Chilean physician and politician
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva photo
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva 10
Brazilian politician, 35th president of Brazil
Mario Vargas Llosa photo
Mario Vargas Llosa 30
Peruvian writer, politician, journalist, and essayist
H.L. Mencken photo
H.L. Mencken 281
American journalist and writer
Margaret Thatcher photo
Margaret Thatcher 348
British stateswoman and politician
Antonio Gramsci photo
Antonio Gramsci 22
Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and lingu…