Best quotes by Arnold Schwarzenegger

It's the most important decision I've had to make since 1978 when I decided to get abikini wax. [On his running for California Governor]

I came to Hollywood and within a decade I was one of the biggest action stars of all time.

I don't understand how they can call me anti-Latino, when I've made four movies in Mexico.

I am a big believer in education, because when I grew up in Austria - when I grew up in Austria I had a great education. I had great teachers.

I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people's trust in their government.

Some information I just keep to myself.

I'm not a person that thinks back in the first place. I think forward. And it's always been less that people didn't get the character, but more people being mad that the movie fell short. Or people would say they are glad the movie went in the toilet. And I totally agree with them. I think there are some movies I made that it was a good thing they went into the toilet, because they weren't good enough. The director f - -ed up, or the production was too small, or I screwed up, whatever the reasons are.

From the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet, they're taxed. Then they go and get the cup of coffee, they're taxed....This goes on all day long. Tax, tax, tax.

I had this child, and it destroyed my family.

I have a good sense of my body in a bathing suit around people who appreciate what I'm doing, like a contest. Then I'm proud. On television I am proud. But on a beach most people are not experts. The general public doesn't know how to look. How proud can you be when they don't even know what they're looking at?

The public doesn't care about figures.

This is the only place that I don't feel out of place, because everyone here is out of place.

I had a clear vision of myself winning the Mr. Universe contest. It was a very spiritual thing, in a way, because I had such faith in the route, the path, that there was never a question in my mind that I would make it.

Onstage I'm always different than offstage. I can be very friendly offstage, but onstage I will pull one trick after another on my competition to wipe him out, you know-because it's my living and I have to win. Franco is my best friend, but I will do as much as I can to make him look bad and make me look good.

My own dreams fortunately came true in this great state. I became Mr. Universe; I became a successful businessman. And even though some people say I still speak with a slight accent, I have reached the top of the acting profession.

You'll get more from being a peacemaker than a warrior.

It's not what you get out of life that counts. Break your mirrors! In our society that is so self-absorbed, begin to look less at yourself and more at each other. you'll get more satisfaction from having improved your neighborhood, your town, your state, your country, and your fellow human beings than you'll ever get from your muscles, your figure, your automobile, your house, or your credit rating.

My instinct was to win, eliminate anyone who is in competition, destroy my enemy and move on without any kind of hesitation at all.

My kids just brought home a beautiful pumpkin, but you know what? I'm going to return it because it's a Democratic pumpkin. It has the orange color of John Kerry's tan, and the roundness of Teddy Kennedy.

We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government.

The greatest feeling you can get in a gym or the most satisfying feeling you can get in the gym is the pump. Let's say you train your biceps, blood is rushing in to your muscles and that's what we call the pump. Your muscles get a really tight feeling like your skin is going to explode any minute and its really tight and its like someone is blowing air into your muscle and it just blows up and it feels different, it feels fantastic.

What's fascinating is, people in Washington would rather spend time in Hollywood, and people in Hollywood would rather spend time in Washington.

Marijuana... That's not a drug, that's a plant.

I'll be back always sounded a little girly to me.

I'm sure a lot of people out there make mistakes.

I was born in Europe... and I've traveled all over the world. I can tell you that there is no place, no country, that is more compassionate, more generous, more accepting, and more welcoming than the United States of America.

I'm not looking for sympathy at all.

Not many people understand what a pump is. It must be experienced to be understood. It is the greatest feeling that I get. I search for this pump because it means that that my muscles will grow when I get it. I get a pump when the blood is running into my muscles. They become really tight with blood. Like the skin is going to explode any minute. It's like someone putting air in my muscles. It blows up. It feels fantastic.

When you campaign and have to participate in so many debates just to the win the nomination of your party, you've had a lot of practice. You get to figure out as you go from one debate to another where you made your mistakes. By the time you get to the big debate you're pretty polished.

As president, Reagan worked very well with Democrats to do big things. It is true that he worked to reduce the size of government and cut federal taxes and he eliminated many regulations, but he also raised taxes when necessary.

I think that people are interested seeing me on the screen.

For the hundreds of thousands of Californians in gay and lesbian households who are managing their day-to-day lives, this decision affirms the full legal protections and safeguards I believe everyone deserves.

If it can bleed, we can kill it.

Posing is a performing art.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

It's time to stop thinking of the Republican Party as an exclusive club where your ideological card is checked at the door, and start thinking about how we can attract more solution-based leaders like Nathan Fletcher and Anthony Adams.

In this country, it doesn't make any difference where you were born. It doesn't make any difference who your parents were. It doesn't make any difference if, like me, you couldn't even speak English until you were in your twenties.

Nobody gets muscles by watching ME lift weights.

I was also going to give a graduation speech in Arizona this weekend. But with my accent, I was afraid they would try to deport me.

Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why should nuclear weapons be exempt?

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.

The more knowledge you have, the more you're free to rely on your instincts.

Well, I think that California has had a history of always spending more money than it takes in.

I would never exchange my life with anybody else's.

It's as satisfying to me as, uh, coming is, you know? As, ah, having sex with a woman and coming.

I told Warren if he mentions Prop. 13 one more time, he has to do 500 push-ups.

I’ve starred in a lot of science fiction movies and, let me tell you something, climate change is not science fiction, this is a battle in the real world, it is impacting us right now.

It doesn't matter what the income level of your family is, or if English is the first or second language. It makes no difference. The bottom line is that every child can be an academic champion, an academic champion and a superstar in academics.

It's simple, if it jiggles, it's fat.

I think Americans are very patriotic.

I was always dreaming about very powerful people. Dictators and things like that. I was always impressed by people who could be remembered for hundreds of years. Even like Jesus, being remembered for thousands of years.

I hate pants. This is something I have inherited from my father. He despised pants, and my mother was never allowed to wear them at home. We're talking about a different time period now, when the man was much more the ruler of the house. But I still feel that way, and neither my mother nor Maria is allowed to go out with me in pants.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.

I don't suffer of anything that I've lost.

I am the most helpful and open up doors for everyone and I like to share.

You're always as good as your last movie and that's the same with politics. If you are successful with a certain policy, then you're hot; if you're successful with the economy, or bringing down the unemployment rate, then you're hot. But if you're not successful, then things go south very quickly.

I never wanted to be a career politician. I always am interested just to take on challenges that everyone says are impossible to do and to take it on.

I embrace technology and I just think that in 1984 when James Cameron wrote about the technology, everyone thought he was totally way out there and it was science fiction. Now it's almost reality what he talked about. The machines have taken over, except they have not become self-aware, like in Terminator. So this is really one thing that we have to watch out for, but I think technology is good.

The percentage of gays is the same, probably, as anywhere. Most bodybuilders are straight, regular street guys, though a lot aren't serious. Many in California are punks, beach bums just lying around in the sun and maybe collecting unemployment.

I don't criticize myself; I criticize my body.

Injuries happen when your mind is beyond your body, largely when you think you're King Kong and lift weights heavier than the body can handle.

To go in the direction that I went takes a lot of work. And I don't think you can do the work - the five or six hours of working out a day - if you don't have a clear goal or know why you're doing it. If you just hang out at the gym and train for five or six hours a day without a goal is almost impossible.

My whole life everyone always said 'it can't be done', 'you'll never do it', 'you will fail', 'no one has ever gone from Austria and become a Mr Universe, blah, blah, blah', or when I ran for governor people were sceptical. It was 'you're going to lose' and 'people don't take people from show-business seriously in politics'. So, I've heard all the 'it's impossible' thing but I didn't pay any attention because I believed that I could do it.

I think that the best profession or the best thing to do is to be a public servant... I mean there's nothing better than working for the people - working for the common people out there and being a servant, a public servant, and I have seen this.

I believe in "love it, or change it" rather than "love it, or leave it."

I am what I am - which is I have aged.

Sometimes you do know, in 'Commando' when I said 'I lied', I knew that it was going to be a funny line. I've never had a bad line.

If I have the chance to time travel, might as well go all out.

I think that if I have a chance to go back, why not just go back all the way in history to the times of the pyramids or the Roman days? I think there are so many great historic times until now that I would like to get a little peek of those periods, rather than just 1984. Why limit yourself?

I think there are some people that are capable of making a sequel more special than the original. And we have seen that when the original 'Terminator' came out, then Jim Cameron outdid himself with the sequel. Then it became the highest grossing movie of the year when it came out in 1991.

I won't raise taxes, because I do not want to punish the people for the politicians' mistakes.

One thing Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't is self-effacing. Everything has to be the biggest. His money, his muscles, his movies and his machines.

One thing was very clear and I made it always very clear at the beginning when I got into the governorship, and that was that I wasn't trying to become a career politician. This was not like I was going to be governor for seven years and then I was going to run for the Senate and then for Congress. That was never my interest.

I don't have any sexual hang-ups, but I'm sure there are bodybuilders who have trouble with sex, and obviously the body building hasn't helped.

In acting class, you talked always about keeping it real and don't act... connect with the people and connect with the partner that you're acting with. The same is also true in politics.