Michael Bloomberg Quotations | Page 2

In 1975, Congress passed a law requiring fuel efficiency standards to double over 10 years, with incremental targets that auto manufacturers were required to meet. That was the responsible approach, and it worked. But since 1985, we've done nothing - even as technology has moved at light speed.

We're [New York] the world's second home, the place where every religion is practiced and every culture is celebrated.

I know that many Irish-born New Yorkers are caught in the trap of our federal immigration policies. If we are going to continue to attract the best and the brightest - and Ireland has more than its fair share - we need to inject some common sense into our immigration laws, and I'm doing my best to make that case in Washington.

The press really is not doing its job of holding the candidates' feet to the fire. The tough questions are not what are you in favor of, but how are you going to get it through Congress?

Nobody's going to go home for a year and come back. Nobody could ever enforce that. Nobody in their right mind would ever try to do it.

In New York City, a lot of people think 'the great outdoors' is the area between your front door and a taxi cab.

There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life.

In our democracy, near equality is no equality. Government either treats everyone the same, or it doesn't. And right now it doesn't.

Today, you're a piranha if you are seen having coffee with somebody from the other party in many cases.

Now, you might say, 'why should we pay people for doing what they're supposed to do?' It's a fair question -- but think of it this way. Every other anti-poverty program that's been tried has failed to get the national poverty rate below 11 percent. Why shouldn't we experiment with a program built around the one strategy that has proven time and again to work wonders -- capitalism?

If people are not smoking, they'll probably be drinking more.

My personal view is, why don't you get out there and try to do something about the things that you don't like, create the jobs that we are lacking, rather than just yell and scream. But if you want to yell and scream, we'll make sure you can do it.

Partisanship may be King in Washington - but the rest of us don't have to pay tribute.

Any friend of fossil is a friend of mine. We've got to do everything we can to get people out of their automobiles and into mass transit.

You're going to see a million people here who have the courage to come and not let terrorists win, and that's exactly what we should all do.

Neither party has God on its side, a monopoly on good ideas, or a lock on any single fiscal, social, or moral philosophy.

When you go to Washington now, you can feel a sense of fear in the air - the fear to do anything, or say anything, that might affect the polls, or give the other side an advantage, or offend a special interest.

We're paying more for the privilege of getting sick and dying early. Once again, it makes no sense. And once again, no one in Washington is talking about how to fix it.

Government by three men in a room has turned New York State into a national symbol of governmental dysfunction. Enough is enough!

What goes on in Europe concerns us greatly because, if Europe comes apart, the E.U. comes apart, then you're going to have enormous impact on America, that's a very big trading partner of ours, and people own securities around the world in this day and age.

If Warren Buffett made his money from ordinary income rather than capital gains, his tax rate would be a lot higher than his secretary's. In fact a very small percentage of people in this country pay a big chunk of the taxes.

I don't know why you should be proud of something. It doesn't make you any better or worse. You are what you are.

We have to get control of our borders. You can only do that if you make companies obey the law and not hire undocumented or illegals. They can only do that is if they have a Social Security Card that has biometrics so they know whether the person is legal or not.

Last I looked - and I'm not a candidate - but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It's most states are winners take all.

Yes, they broke the law, but we can't deport them. Let's get over this pointing fingers and do something about that, whether it - they have to pay a fine, learn to speak English, the history, you can do that. And then you have to give visas for the skills we need.

I think that all money can do is to get your message out. Unfortunately, we live in a world where you have to use mass media to communicate with the people, and it just costs an awful lot of money.

The CIA will only hire people with impeccable credentials to be a translator. 'Impeccable credentials' means you've never lived outside the United States.

This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing. It's not politically viable; it's not morally right; it's just not going to happen.

These endless legal challenges that define elections in New York are a joke in this country, and they are the reason why it is so expensive, or one of the reasons, it's so expensive to run here and why so many people decide not to run.

Government caters to those screaming the loudest, regardless of what they're screaming about. In business, it's exactly the opposite! You invest more in the most successful departments, and less in those that aren't performing.

Like Israel, New York City's history has been defined by immigrants who come in search of freedom and the opportunity to build a better life. And like Israel, New York City has remained a target for terrorists who seek to destroy that freedom

You can't sit there and worry about everything.

Five years have come, and five years have gone, and still we stand together as one. We come back to this place to remember the heartbreaking anniversary - and each person who died here - those known and unknown to us, whose absence is always with us.

Unemployment in America today is too high. And part of the reason, unfortunately, is that many companies cannot fill the high-skilled jobs increasingly at risk of going overseas.

Throughout our history each and every generation has expanded upon the freedoms won by their parents and grandparents. Each and every generation has removed some of the barriers to full participation in the American dream. And the next great barrier standing before our generation is the prohibition on marriage for same-sex couples

If a hurricane strikes, we can blame the president for not being there; we can blame Congress and FEMA; we can blame the state governments; but in the end, it's the mayors and the local city governments that have to be prepared for emergencies and be prepared to act.

Organizing around a common interest is a fundamental part of democracy. We should no more try to take away the right of individuals to collectively bargain than we should try to take away the right to a secret ballot.

Trees will improve property values, take pollutants out of the air, help with water runoff.

We need our president to be successful because our futures are all tied to the success of America, which means America's government, which means, in essence, the president.

Despite its potential, the federal government has restricted funding for creating new cell lines - putting the burden of any future research squarely on the shoulders of the private sector. Government's most basic responsibility, however, is the health and welfare of its people, so it has a duty to encourage appropriate scientific investigations that could possibly save the lives of millions.

I think we are not serious about attacking the long-term debt problem, and that's one of the things that he's going to have to find a way to get on the agenda.

The one thing computers have done is let us make bigger mistakes. We have to be careful not to depend on our machines.

If you can't prove it's not true then a certain number of people will glom on and say it is true.

In science, a path that turns out to be a dead end is very useful because you don't devote resources to focusing on that; you go elsewheres.

Ten years have passed since a perfect blue sky morning turned into the blackest of nights. Since then we've lived in sunshine and in shadow, and although we can never unsee what happened here, we can also see that children who lost their parents have grown into young adults, grandchildren have been born and good works and public service have taken root to honor those we loved and lost.

After hard work, the biggest determinant is being in the right place at the right time.

We will go forward... we will never go back.

When I came into office, people said, 'Billionaire? How do they live? What do they eat? How do they sleep?' Today, they see me on the subway coming uptown. A couple of people say hi, some people smile and nod. Some people just sleep. It's not an issue.

When I care about something, I care about something. I think I have an obligation as an American to - and as a citizen, as - as a human being, to help others. Smoking is going to kill a billion people this century. I've put six hundred million dollars from my own money into trying to stop the tobacco companies from getting kids to smoke and convincing adults that it's not in their health.

Our goal here in New York is to ensure that every child who graduates high school is ready to start a career or start college and to dramatically increase the number of students that graduate from college.

America was built by immigrants. Almost nobody that I know is any more than three generations, maybe four generations, American.

You're entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

We have an energy policy - we're transferring our wealth to overseas to a bunch of countries that don't have the same values as us. In some cases, they're using our money to finance terrorism against us.

I believe in Judaism, I was raised a Jew, I'm happy to be one - or proud to be one.

There is no accountability today... no willingness to focus on big ideas.

I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world.

Getting the job done has been the basis for the success my company has achieved.

If you want to do something for your children and show how much you love them, the single best thing-by far-is to support organizations that will create a better world for them and their children.

If you are honest with yourself and if you want to like what you see in the mirror, is you have to say what you really believe.

Nobody should ever mistake and think that our country [USA] is weakened, or that authority is diffuse and unspecified, and that we are vulnerable.

I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.

I like the theater, dining and chasing women. Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. It's like a wet dream.

I don't know why people carry guns. Guns kill people.

Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms. New Yorkers probably know that as much if not more than anybody else after the terrible tragedy of 9/11.

You are safer here tonight than you would be on the streets of any other city in the world.

Most gun dealers follow the law and run honest businesses. But the statistics show that 1 percent of dealers sell more than half of all illegal guns. Why isn't the federal government going after them? Here's one reason: unlike mayors, members of Congress don't get a phone call in the middle of the night when a cop is shot and killed. They don't deliver the eulogies.

Even though New York is the safest big city in the nation, there are still far too many illegal guns on our streets. Nearly all of them arrive from out of state - and most are sold by a small group of rogue gun dealers who refuse to obey federal laws.

Well, you have the public not wanting any new spending, you have the Republicans not wanting any new taxes, you have the Democrats not wanting any new spending cuts, you have the markets not wanting any new borrowing, and you have the economists wanting all of the above. And that leads to paralysis.

We all know that election reform takes time. That's because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we're going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so.

What has changed is that people have stopped working together.

Ironically, it is exactly because we are a city that embraces freedom, that welcomes everyone and encourages their dreams, that New York remains on the front lines in the war on terror.

Canada sets aside 36 percent of their visas for people with skills they think their country needs. We set aside six percent. We educate the doctors, and then don't give 'em a green card.

You have to take away some of tax breaks for the wealthy, and you have to cut back on some entitlements. Because, unless we do all of these things, it just doesn't work. And what's good theater and what's good politics isn't necessarily good economic policy.

Life is too short to spend your time avoiding failure,

I never liked anyone who didn't have a temper. If you don't have a temper, you don't have any passion.

I've always thought if we don't want to enforce laws on the books, we should remove them from the books. But when you have laws, you breed contempt if you don't enforce them.

I do think there are certain times we should infringe on your freedom.

You bet I did and I enjoyed it.

The next day after I got fired, literally the next day, I started a new company.

The truth of the matter is: you can create a great legacy, and inspire others, by giving it to philanthropic organizations.

A lot can happen in a week - just read any Bible, .. On the seventh day, Election Day, unlike the Bible, we can't rest.

Buy what's deliverable, not what could be.

If you think of all the publicity about the terrible tragedy of Virginia Tech, we have a Virginia Tech in this country every day. It's just spread across 50 states.

In business, when you fail at something, when something doesn't work, you say okay, we've learned that that's not a path to go down.

I've always respected those who tried to change the world for the better, rather than just complain about it.

Design does matter. And not necessarily in a way that people realize. A lot of what you do, people take for granted - that a park has always been here, that a bicycle lane has always been there, that the street is safe or clean. ...

New York has been, and will continue to be, a magnet for people from all over the world. This is where the arts, business, research and technology converge to create the world's foremost urban economy.

Nobody wants a job where they don't have authority to go along with the responsibility. Quite the contrary. The more authority you give people, the better people you can attract, and the harder they're going to work, and the more loyal they are going to be.

If you want to know how to solve society's problems, you start out with better public education.

What you've got to do is be honest. Say what you believe. Give it to them straight. Just don't wuss out.

My father, a bookkeeper who never earned more than $11,000 a year in his life, sat there, writing out a $25 check to the NAACP. When I asked him why, he said discrimination against anyone is discrimination against us all. And I never forgot that. Indeed, his philanthropy was a gift, not just to that organization, but to me.

Don't be afraid to assert yourself, have confidence in your abilities and don't let the bastards get you down.

In the game of life, when the final buzzer sounds, the only stat you carry with you is the number of assists you made.

You must first be willing to fail — and you must have the courage to go for it anyway.

Entrepreneurship is having an idea to do something great and not entirely have a plan on how to do it but the drive and will power to make it work

Working collectively and collaboratively is the difference between mediocrity by yourself or success as a team. You have to share the pain and the responsibility and if you do then you will also share in the rewards.

Progress is not inevitable. It's up to us to create it.

If someone tells me they skied all day and never fell down, I tell them to find another mountain.

There will be ups, there will be downs, there will be sideways. I can just tell you I have been hired, I have been fired, I have been lauded, I have been vilified. I've said some of the most brilliant things that just by accident appeared on my tongue, and I've said some of the dumbest things that you could imagine. But each day - even the day that I knew I was going to be fired - I looked forward to because I've always believed that tomorrow was going to be the best day of my life.

The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change.