Quote

Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.

Barney Frank

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Barney Frank
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: March 31
Former U.S. Representative
Politician
Bayonne
New Jersey
Barnett Frank
Weapon
Weapons
Possible
Politics
Powerful
Ridicule

More quotes by Barney Frank

Image
If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don't hold it back for retaliatory purposes.
Barney Frank
Image
I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.
Barney Frank
Image
We don't get ourselves dry cleaned.
Barney Frank
Image
It seems to me that politicians ought to use the same words as other people.
Barney Frank
Image
Let us not say that we will decide on a political basis at the national level that no State is competent to regulate the practice of medicine in that State if they decide to allow a doctor to prescribe marijuana, because that is what we are talking about.
Barney Frank
Image
They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality.
Barney Frank
Image
The best humor is offered up to you by the stupidity of your opponents.
Barney Frank
Image
The people who started the American government, the founders of the Constitution, didn't like political parties but they were forced to start them. Nobody ever created political parties in England, they evolved. And there do tend to be two general tendencies that focus around how much government you think you need.
Barney Frank
Image
These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.
Barney Frank
Image
When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
Barney Frank
Image
Ronald Reagan believes in the free market like some people believe in unicorns.
Barney Frank
Image
Bush senior used to say that we have more will than wallet. So he urged the country to attack poverty with a thousand points of light, none of which could be eaten.
Barney Frank
Image
I wouldn't want [gay marriage] to go to the United States Supreme Court now because that homophobe Antonin Scalia has too many votes on this current court.
Barney Frank
Image
Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.
Barney Frank
Image
I have this fear that one day there's going to be a fire in the Senate and there are only going to be 57 senators there and they’ll all die because they won't have 60 votes to allow themselves to leave the building.
Barney Frank
Image
Capitalism works better from every perspective when the economic decision makers are forced to share power with those who will be affected by those decisions.
Barney Frank
Image
The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.
Barney Frank
Image
For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.
Barney Frank
Image
Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
Barney Frank
Image
I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.
Barney Frank