George H. W. Bush Biography Quotes 20 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
George Herbert Walker Bush was born on June 12, 1924, in Milton, Massachusetts, and grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut. He was the second son of Prescott S. Bush, a future U.S. senator from Connecticut, and Dorothy Walker Bush. Their example of public-spiritedness and restraint shaped his temperament. After attending Phillips Academy in Andover, where he captained teams and embraced a culture of duty, he intended to move on directly to college. The Second World War intervened, and service took precedence.

Military Service
On his 18th birthday in 1942, Bush enlisted in the U.S. Navy and became, at the time, the youngest naval aviator. Flying the TBM Avenger from the carrier USS San Jacinto in the Pacific, he completed numerous missions. In September 1944 he was shot down over the Pacific near Chichijima after striking a target; he bailed out and was rescued by the submarine USS Finback. For his bravery he received the Distinguished Flying Cross and Air Medals. The experience embedded in him a sober view of risk, gratitude for survival, and a lifelong sense that public service should be purposeful and restrained.

Family and Business Career
After the war, Bush married Barbara Pierce on January 6, 1945. Their partnership became a defining element of his life, marked by candor, humor, and resilience, especially after the death of their daughter, Robin, to leukemia in 1953. The couple raised a close-knit family whose members would become prominent in public life, including George W. Bush, later the 43rd U.S. president, and Jeb Bush, a future governor of Florida; their other children are Neil, Marvin, and Dorothy Bush Koch.

Bush studied at Yale University, graduating in 1948 with a degree in economics. He captained the baseball team to the College World Series, then moved with Barbara to West Texas, joining the postwar oil boom. He co-founded Zapata Petroleum and later Zapata Offshore, developing expertise in offshore drilling and earning a reputation as an energetic, ethical manager who trusted partners and delegated authority.

Entry into Politics
Bush immersed himself in civic life in Houston and Harris County, chairing the local Republican Party. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1964, then won a newly created House seat from Texas in 1966, serving two terms. In Congress he was a pragmatic conservative who backed fair housing in 1968 and focused on fiscal discipline and space policy. He lost another Senate bid in 1970 to Lloyd Bentsen but quickly returned to national service.

Diplomatic and Intelligence Posts
Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford entrusted Bush with demanding posts. As U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 1971 to 1973, he honed consensus-building skills, working with figures such as Henry Kissinger. During Watergate he served as chairman of the Republican National Committee, urging cooperation with investigators while trying to steady the party during Nixon's resignation. Ford then sent him to Beijing as chief of the U.S. Liaison Office in 1974, 1975, where Bush built relationships with Chinese leaders and practiced the retail diplomacy that became a hallmark. In 1976, 1977 he directed the Central Intelligence Agency, restoring morale after a period of turmoil and building credibility with Congress.

Vice Presidency
Bush sought the presidency in 1980, then joined Ronald Reagan's ticket as vice president. From 1981 to 1989 he was a loyal partner to Reagan, chairing task forces on deregulation and counter-narcotics, traveling extensively, and representing the administration abroad. He formed a durable team with longtime friend James A. Baker III, who would later be his secretary of state, and worked closely with national security figures such as George Shultz and, toward the end of the Reagan years, Brent Scowcroft.

Election of 1988 and the Presidency
In 1988 Bush won the presidency over Michael Dukakis, selecting Dan Quayle as his vice president. He promised a kinder, gentler nation and called for a thousand points of light to celebrate volunteerism, building on service initiatives that culminated in the Points of Light Foundation.

Bush's presidency, from 1989 to 1993, was defined by foreign policy at a momentous hinge of history. He and Secretary of State James Baker worked with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and later Boris Yeltsin to manage the end of the Cold War, negotiate the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), and support the peaceful reunification of Germany alongside Chancellor Helmut Kohl. He maintained close consultation with leaders such as Margaret Thatcher and John Major in the United Kingdom, Francois Mitterrand in France, and Brian Mulroney in Canada.

In December 1989, U.S. forces intervened in Panama to remove Manuel Noriega, citing threats to American citizens and the integrity of the Panama Canal treaties. After Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, Bush assembled a broad coalition, including key support from King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and many NATO and Arab states. With Defense Secretary Dick Cheney, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, and General Norman Schwarzkopf, he oversaw Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, achieving the liberation of Kuwait in early 1991 under United Nations authority. He chose not to expand the war's aims to regime change in Baghdad, emphasizing limited objectives and coalition cohesion.

Bush also advanced Middle East diplomacy, convening the Madrid Peace Conference in 1991 that brought Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Arab representatives, including King Hussein of Jordan and Syrian officials, to the same table, with Baker as the principal broker. He signed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, modernizing controls on acid rain and urban smog; the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, a landmark civil rights law; the Immigration Act of 1990; and the Civil Rights Act of 1991. He also concluded the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations with Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Mulroney, setting up the accord signed in late 1992.

Domestic Challenges and 1992 Election
At home, Bush faced a slowing economy and large deficits. In 1990 he entered a bipartisan budget deal that included spending caps and tax increases, breaking his 1988 campaign pledge. Budget director Richard Darman and Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady helped craft the agreement, while White House chiefs of staff John Sununu and later Samuel Skinner managed political fallout. The decision stabilized federal finances and introduced enforcement rules that shaped 1990s fiscal policy, but it alienated parts of his party. Contentious Supreme Court nominations added to the political strain; he appointed David Souter in 1990 and Clarence Thomas in 1991 after hearings that featured testimony from Anita Hill and intense national debate.

In 1992 Bush ran for a second term against Democrat Bill Clinton and independent Ross Perot. Despite foreign policy successes and the backing of a seasoned team that now included Brent Scowcroft as national security advisor and, late in the term, James Baker returning as White House chief of staff, economic discontent and voter desire for change led to defeat.

Post-Presidency
After leaving office, Bush remained active yet understated. He opened the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum at Texas A&M University, fostered scholarship and civic education, and undertook humanitarian missions. Partnering with Bill Clinton, he helped mobilize aid after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in 2005, demonstrating a bipartisan spirit. He supported the public careers of his children while avoiding interference, even as George W. Bush entered the White House and Jeb Bush governed Florida. In recognition of his lifetime of service, President Barack Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. He maintained personal traditions, including celebratory parachute jumps on milestone birthdays, long after the war had ended.

Personal Character and Legacy
Bush's public manner was modest, with an instinct for coalition-building and careful statecraft. He valued personal notes and quiet diplomacy over rhetoric, and he relied on trusted advisors such as James Baker and Brent Scowcroft to translate prudence into policy. His leadership helped close the Cold War without great-power conflict, secure German unity within NATO, and reaffirm multilateral cooperation at the United Nations. Domestically, his signature of the ADA and environmental legislation broadened civil rights and public health protections. His budget deal, while politically costly, laid groundwork for later fiscal improvements. He advanced free trade and diplomacy that his successors would carry forward.

Barbara Bush, his spouse of more than seven decades, remained his confidante and counselor until her death in 2018. George H. W. Bush died later that year, on November 30, 2018, in Houston, at age 94. He was remembered by family, including George W. and Jeb Bush, by colleagues such as Baker and Scowcroft, and by world leaders he had worked with, as a servant-leader whose steadiness, decency, and experience guided the nation through a time of profound change.

Our collection contains 20 quotes who is written by George, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Leadership - Meaning of Life - Faith - Sarcastic.

Other people realated to George: Dalai Lama (Leader), Dan Rather (Journalist), Arnold Schwarzenegger (Actor), Mikhail Gorbachev (Statesman), Brian Mulroney (Statesman), Al Gore (Vice President), James Carville (Lawyer), Roseanne Barr (Actress), Shirley Temple (Actress), Dana Carvey (Comedian)

• 1999 All the Best: My Life in Letters and Other Writings (Collection)
• 1998 A World Transformed (Non-fiction)
• 1988 Looking Forward (Non-fiction)