Bruce Babbitt Quotes

• We have to preserve it and use it sustainably. And the short-term use of resources at the destruction of the long-term heritage of this country is not a policy that we can pursue.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Country, Long, Heritage

  "Exit Interview: Bruce Babbitt". Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  45 Copy quote

• The notion that big business and big labor and big government can sit down around a table somewhere and work out the direction of the American economy is at complete variance with the reality of where the American economy is headed. I mean, it's like dinosaurs gathering to talk about the evolution of a new generation of mammals.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Mean, Reality, Government

  "Democrat Bruce Babbitt". Interview with Steven Pearlstein, www.inc.com. August 1, 1987.

  7 Copy quote

• City parks serve, day in and day out, as the primary green spaces for the majority of Americans.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Cities, Space, Majority

  9 Copy quote

• I think there has been an unfortunate tendency for a lot of different groups to forget that distinction between natural law and revealed truth and to say: Our complete agenda is to be enacted into laws governing the entire society. Many different religious groups claim that authority, not only Catholics. A lot of different Protestant groups as well are stepping forward to say: Here is our agenda, it is a moral agenda, ergo it must be enacted into law. I think that the distinction between natural law and more ultimate kinds of doctrine is being lost.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Religious, Thinking, Catholic

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• When I was at Notre Dame studying under Joe Evans, Frank O'Malley, and others, there was a very lively debate about the distinction between natural law and revealed truth. Most of the philosophers of church and state expected that what was going to be advocated as the law of the land would be related to natural law. If you attempted to draw lines about certain general moral truths that were derivative of logic and reason, they would prove to be widely shared, and therefore suitable to be enacted into law on both the civic and religious sides.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Religious, Church, Logic

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  6 Copy quote

• I would argue that practices that destroy ecosystems always destroy jobs.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Jobs, Practice, Ecosystems

  4 Copy quote

• I think it is important that religious leaders of all kinds consciously attempt to distinguish between issues of natural law on which there is consensus among Catholic, Protestant, and Jew and those issues on which there must be a greater degree of tolerance of other peoples' opinions and of the diversity that is characteristic of American society.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Religious, Thinking, Diversity

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• Taxes are the flip side of expenditures. The same issues apply on both sides. There are questions of fairness and justice as much in the way you take money away as in the way you disburse it.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Justice, Fairness, Taxes

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• Well, I think breathing life into the Endangered Species Act, taking those wolves back into Yellowstone, restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Thinking, Breathing, Rivers

  67 Copy quote

• We must identify our enemies and drive them into oblivion.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Enemy, Oblivion

  4 Copy quote

• I am one of those people who deeply resents not having been born in the 19th century, when there were still open places to explore.

  Bruce Babbitt

  People, Century, Born

  4 Copy quote

• Broadly speaking, it is my conclusion that a pretty good guide to most issues of natural law is to look at those areas where you find a consensus in the Judeo-Christian tradition. I think that is roughly, not unerringly, the outline of what I would call natural law.There must be some moral values underlying any civilization; that's my guide.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Thinking, Moral, Tradition

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  6 Copy quote

• Well, I actually wrote her a letter a couple of days ago congratulating her. The tone I tried to convey in the letter is, look, you are a part of a great American historical process.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Couple, Hypnosis, Historical

  "Exit Interview: Bruce Babbitt". Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  16 Copy quote

• We had kind of a rocky start, but I spent a lot of time working with the President and handing him statistics and showing him what we were doing as we went along and kind of saying to him, you know, this is really important.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Important, President, Statistics

  "Exit Interview: Bruce Babbitt". Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• The Northwest is in better shape than it was eight years ago.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Eight, Years, Shapes

  Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  7 Copy quote

• If the bishops are saying that it is divine revelation that seven percent of unemployment is morally unacceptable and that that is a teaching which must as a matter of faith be accepted by all Catholics, I respectfully dissent.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Teaching, Catholic, Seven

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• Well, what I tried to do is simply to get out on the land. And when I came to Washington, I think one of the mistakes we made early on was kind of having an ideological dispute up in the Congress.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Mistake, Thinking, Land

  "Exit Interview: Bruce Babbitt". Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  7 Copy quote

• We've set aside tens of millions of acres of those northwestern forests for perpetuity. The unemployment rate has gone not up, but down. The economy has gone up.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Unemployment, Gone, Acres

  Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  8 Copy quote

• We have an obligation to live in harmony with creation, with our capital... with God's creation. And we need to administer and work that very carefully.

  Bruce Babbitt

  God's Creation, Needs, Harmony

  "Exit Interview: Bruce Babbitt". Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• I think the Ronald Reagan tax reform proposals are a step toward distributive justice. They redistribute the tax burden more equitably and more progressively among individuals and call upon business to carry a somewhat larger proportion of the total tax load. Both of these are steps toward equity and distributive justice.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Thinking, Justice, Proposal

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• It is like living in a wilderness of mirrors. No fact goes unchallenged.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Mirrors, Facts, Wilderness

  7 Copy quote

• I think the people will - who advocate having a step back and read those public opinion polls on the front page of the newspapers all over this country saying public supports restoration in restoration of the Everglades, protection of the parks and the creation of monuments.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Country, Thinking, People

  Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  24 Copy quote

• Protecting all this land, working with the President to establish all these monuments, to, you know... I think the President has a land protection record that's second to no one in this century, maybe Teddy Roosevelt.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Thinking, Land, President

  Interview with Gwen Ifill, www.pbs.org. January 5, 2001.

  4 Copy quote

• I have been very outspoken in my opposition to cuts in what I would call the means-tested entitlement programs: Medicaid, food stamps, and all of that. I feel very, very strongly that those cuts as proposed are unjust, but I am not prepared to label Ronald Reagan a "sinner."It seems to me that when you invoke the adjective "moral" you must be careful to distinguish what it is you mean by that.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Mean, Cutting, Moral

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

• I think of Martin Luther King phrase a lot when I'm deciding public issues. He said: "Here I stand: I can do no other." It is basically an affirmation of my ultimate responsibility to obey my conscience in my acts as a public official.

  Bruce Babbitt

  Responsibility, Thinking, Affirmation

  Source: www.commonwealmagazine.org

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Fred DuVal

Sandra Day O'Connor

Jane D. Hull

Gale Norton

Mo Udall

Jan Brewer

Janet Reno

Dick Gephardt