William Weld

“I think government has a major role to play in helping us with the pursuit of happiness.”

“I think transportation and corrections are not the first two areas that I would go looking for massive change.”

“One of the functions of government is to act as a safeguard not just of property but of our liberties.”

“I extend that to the abortion issue, I extend that to the so-called gay rights issue, I think this is a freedom principle and consistent with the analysis in the economic area as well.”

“Natural resources are so vast that no single individual or business is going to protect them; they don't have an incentive to.”

“There are several such issues where I have departed radically from the Republican orthodoxy.”

“In the nineteenth century, slavery was the greatest wrong, and government never stood so tall as when it was redressing that wrong.”

“Speaking of tax fairness, it was Senator Kerry who voted to increase the income tax on senior citizens on Social Security, earning as little as $32,000 a year.”

“I have come to realize that Jesse Helms stands for everything in politics that is anathema to me.”

“I think coercive taxation is theft, and government has a moral duty to keep it to a minimum.”

“Opposing the free flow of goods or people is a bad idea.”

“It's healthy for government to be a kind of moral catalyst, using the bully pulpit of high office.”

“Do we believe that there is equal economic opportunity out there in the real world, right now, for each and every one of these groups? If we believed in the tooth fairy, if we believed in the Easter Bunny, we might well believe that.”

“Much is forgiven anyone who relieves the desperate boredom of the working press.”