“You send me to Washington to represent you in the senate. But you do not send me there because you are interested in grave questions of national or international policy. When I come back to Arizona, you never ask me any questions about such policies; instead you ask me: “What about my pension?” or “What about that job for my son?” I am not in Washington as a statesman. I am there as a very well paid messenger boy doing your errands. My chief occupation is going around with a forked stick picking up little fragments of patronage for my constituents.”

— Henry Fountain Ashurst

Reported in Thomas C. Donnelly, Rocky Mountain Politics (1940), p. 283; reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989).
Attributed

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "You send me to Washington to represent you in the senate. But you do not send me there because you are interested in gr…" by Henry Fountain Ashurst?

Henry Fountain Ashurst 10

United States Senator from Arizona 1874–1962

Related quotes

“I am not going to dictate to you what you write about my life and work. I only ask that you not make me out to be a 'whiner and sentimentalist.”

Józef Piłsudski (1867–1935) Polish politician and Prime Minister

(1908) Bohdan Urbankowski, Józef Piłsudski: Dreamer and Strategist, 1997, ISBN 8370019145, p. 133
Attributed

“Questioner: Why do you continue to support a Nazi policy as Obama has expressly supported this policy? Why are you supporting it?
Frank: When you ask me that question I am gonna revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question: On what planet do you spend most of your time? […] As you stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler, and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is, as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like arguing with a dining room table: I have no interest in doing it.”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

Response to questioner at a town-meeting in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, broadcast on CNN (18 August 2009); YouTube video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGX-2oTNens.

“You are not listening to me. You are making phrases about Byron. And while you gesticulate, with your cloak, your cane, I am trying to expose a secret told to nobody yet; I am asking you (as I stand with my back to you) to take my life in your hands and tell me whether I am doomed always to cause repulsion in those I love?”

Virginia Woolf book The Waves

Bernard, section III
The Waves (1931)

“Senator, I am not now, nor have I ever been, an oil trader. and neither has anyone on my behalf. I have never seen a barrel of oil, owned one, bought one, sold one - and neither has anyone on my behalf. Now I know that standards have slipped in the last few years in Washington, but for a lawyer you are remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice. I am here today but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question, without ever having contacted me, without ever written to me or telephoned me, without any attempt to contact me whatsoever. And you call that justice.”

George Galloway (1954) British politician, broadcaster, and writer

" Galloway v the US Senate: transcript of statement http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1616578,00.html", The Times, May 18, 2005
Testimony before the US Senate on May 17, 2005.

“The only thing to think over was Me, of course. And the real problem about Me was, What was I supposed to do? Was I meant to be nothing but God? I had tried the God business and found it too limited. It was a job for a simple-minded egomaniac. There had to be something else for me to do—something more meaningful, more expressive of my true self. I’m convinced of it! That is my problem, and that is the question I ask of you: What am I to do with myself?”

Robert Sheckley book Dimension of Miracles

Source: Dimension of Miracles (1968), Chapter 7 (p. 53)

“I was at a point where I was ready to say I am what I am because of what I am and if you like me I'm grateful, and if you don't, what am I going to do about it?”

Anne Bancroft (1931–2005) American actress

Interview on her role in the Broadway play "Two for the Seesaw". The New York Times (1958).

“People ask me, "What are you going to do to develop jobs in your state?" Well, that's not my job as a US senator to bring industry to the state. That’s the lieutenant governor’s job, that’s your state senators’ and assemblymen’s job. That’s your secretary of state’s job, to make a climate in the state that says, ‘Y’all come.’”

Sharron Angle (1949) Former member of the Nevada Assembly from 1999 to 2007

campaign appearance, 2010-05-14

“I would have been surprised if you had not asked that question, because everywhere I am, I am asked how about the Chinese. There’s a lot of sudden interest on the Chinese and Africa. You know, what is it that we are trying to do in Africa? Africa as a continent in pursuit of development.”

Jakaya Kikwete (1950) Tanzanian politician and president

On China's engagement with the continent.
Interviews, Interview with Financial Times, 2007-10-04 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d8a07e28-72a3-11dc-b7ff-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check1/

“What you want if you're asking that question is a specific time in your life to come back to you, and that will never happen. You will never be 15 years old again. I could write, verbatim, another Take This To Your Grave, and you won't feel the same way. It's not going to mean anything to you because it wouldn't mean anything to me.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

When asked "how do you respond to people who say they wish Fall Out Boy would just write another Take This To Your Grave?"
AbsolutePunk.net, Patrick Stump, Part 1 - 10.06.08

“When a problem is disturbing you, don't ask, "What should I do about it?" Ask, "What part of me is being disturbed by this?”

Michael Singer (1945) American landscape architect

Source: The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Henry Fountain Ashurst 10

Related quotes

Related topics