50 Proposal Quotes For Introducing New Ideas

By Clifton Sankofa

School Leader, Language Arts Expert & Master Quote Curator

Published January 17, 2023

Say “I do” with our superb collection of proposal quotes.

Proposals come in all shapes and sizes; we have the quotes to prove it.

What is a proposal?

There are all types of proposals out there.

Each day millions of proposals are offered, accepted, and rejected.

When most people hear the word proposal, they usually think about a marriage proposal and two people getting engaged.

A marriage proposal is when someone asks someone else for their hand in marriage.

However, this is only one of the many proposals out there.

From a business point of view, a proposal is a written document to persuade the reader to a suggested plan of action.

Below are the most common business proposals:

Unsolicited.
Formally solicited.
Informally solicited.

A proposal can be a plan or suggestion put forward for consideration by others.

Formal proposals are written, while informal proposals are discussed.

Proposals may be solicited or unsolicited.

Most projects or ideas require a proposal.

Proposals are essential to business

Governments routinely ask for solicited and unsolicited proposals, picking the best offer.

The awarding organization lays down the requirements that the proposal should contain.

In many cases, a standard format is provided for the parties to submit their proposals.

Government agencies routinely ask for proposals from potential suppliers.

They require more background information and should be persuasive to convince the reader of the proposal’s suitability.

For more great quotes and content, check our fabulous proposal quotes below.

Short proposal quotes

Check out these short quotes about proposals.

1. “Now my proposal rips the global.” — Raekwon

2. “Is this a proposal? I’m married now, you know.” — Rod Steiger

3. “My proposal happens to be very mainstream.” — Noam Chomsky

4. “Let not our proposal be disregarded on the score of our youth.” — Virgil

5. “Last night, I got a marriage proposal. I just laughed.” — Carrie Underwood

6. “I think Bush’s immigration proposal is treason, and he should be impeached.” — Peter Brimelow

7. “Yes, the marriage proposal was shot. Michael excluded the dialogue from the final edit.” — Madeleine Stowe

8. “I refused David Letterman’s proposal of marriage for obvious reasons, but thanks for asking.” — Teri Garr

9. “But I felt all the more bound to make this proposal because it at once turns to a reproach.” — Ferdinand Lassalle

10. “In all seriousness, I don’t get people who need to make a proposal a bigger deal than marriage already is.” — Julie Klausner

Best political proposal quotes

Here are some political proposal quotes from an array of politicians and artists.

11. “You don’t often get a proposal to do Tolstoy for a really interesting director – that’s easy to say yes to.” — Tom Stoppard

12. “Romney said that his tax reform proposal is ‘very similar to the Simpson-Bowles plan.’ How I wish it were.” — Erskine Bowles

13. “But the leaders of the OIC could not even accept Mahathir’s proposal, yet they talk about respect and honor.” — Abu Bakar Bashir

14. “The proposal that men and women should be treated equally under the law is hardly a controversial concept.” — Carolyn Maloney

15. “Beginning to dismantle the Pentagon would save $1 trillion a year – a small government proposal if ever there was one.” — Bill Ayers

16. “A ban on paid priority is central to any real net neutrality proposal, beginning with the Snowe-Dorgan Bill of 2006.” — Marvin Ammori

17. “I am not married, no. I wasn’t really into the notion when I was younger, but now I think a proposal is the ultimate romantic gesture.” — Miranda Hart

18. “In the nineteenth century, many Anglican theologians, both evangelical and catholic, embraced positively the proposal of evolution.” — Arthur Peacocke

19. “The Congress is virtually incapable of passing any reforms unless they first get permission from the powerful special interests who are most affected by the proposal.” — Al Gore

20. “We are still waiting for the president to introduce a concrete plan. He has just hinted at what he is thinking about doing, but no one has seen a proposal.” — Grace Napolitano

Request for proposals quotes

In many walks of life, business, political, and personal, we must make proposals.

21. “It is estimated that raising the retirement age to 70 would cut the shortfall by about 36%. But this proposal has some drawbacks.” — Steve Israel

22. “Let me tell you, the heart of my tax proposal: I will not raise taxes on the American people. I will not raise taxes on middle-income Americans.” — Mitt Romney

23. “Small businesses drive this economy, and it is unacceptable that the President’s budget proposal does not give them the tools they need to be successful.” — Solomon Ortiz

24. “As the Pentagon makes plans for the largest troop rotation since World War II, I will work with the Armed Services Committee to help make this proposal a reality.” — Mike Rogers

25. “I have strongly rejected the proposal to pardon and transfer her to the United States. I do not have the legal power to pardon terrorists, and even if I did, I would not use it.” — Alberto Fujimori

26. “When President George W. Bush attempted to reform Social Security, that proposal was more unpopular with Americans than the Iraq war. People love their entitlements.” — Robert Kiyosaki

27. “Every proposal I’m making, every idea I’m advancing has a single, central purpose: to revive a failing economy and give working Americans the help and security they need.” — Dick Gephardt

28. “My agent and I put out my proposal one Thursday afternoon in August 1998. Publishers started bidding immediately, and that process progressed for a few days.” — Laura Hillenbrand

29. “President Bush’s proposal to focus our resources on sending humans to Mars is intriguing, but it is not the most compelling reason that Americans ought to focus our interest on the Red Planet.” — Jay Inslee

30. “There is no objection to the proposal: in order to learn to be a poet, I shall try to write a sonnet. But the thing you must try to write when you do so is a real sonnet, and not a practice sonnet.” — James Fenton

Insightful proposal quotes

Here are some interesting quotes about various proposal types.

31. “Olmert made a proposal on the governing of Jerusalem that I do not believe his cabinet or the Knesset would have accepted.” — Elliott Abrams

32. “My proposal that Fed governors should signal their commitment to public service by wearing Hawaiian shirts and Bermuda shorts has so far gone unheeded.” — Ben Bernanke

33. “The proposal is the only thing that the guy has control over in the entire wedding deal. It is your one chance to make this moment stand out, not only for you but for her.” — Drew Seeley

34. “The most brilliant satire of all time was A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift. You’ll notice how everything got straightened out in Ireland within days of that coming out.” — P. J. O’Rourke

35. “I spoke to my agent and learned that a Hollywood scout had seen my proposal in one of the publishing houses and had faxed it to Hollywood, where it was generating a lot of interest.” — Laura Hillenbrand

36. “In 1964, when we first arrived in New York City, I remember vividly seeing the skyline of Manhattan, and our first proposal of 1964 was to wrap two lower Manhattan buildings. We never got permission.” — Christo

37. “Formulating the proposal is about 80% of the actual time of the process. In the end, the time spent filming, editing and postproduction is a very small proportion of the total time you spend in the production of the film.” — Francis Alys

38. “I was starstruck and completely confused; making a film of this story hadn’t even occurred to me, and I hadn’t written a single line of the book yet. I had no idea how this man knew anything about my book proposal. “ — Laura Hillenbrand

39. “My proposal now is to test a vaccine first on people who have been infected, and if you show some efficacy at this level, you might be able to go further to study uninfected people in a population with a high rate of infection.” — Luc Montagnier

40. “Just this week, my husband proposed a plan for schools and libraries to develop their own plans to keep children from finding indecent material on the Internet as an alternative to a Congressional proposal that would require a federally mandated solution.” — Tipper Gore

Business proposal quotes

These are all about the business side of proposals.

41. “Here’s a proposal, offered only partly in jest: no resident of the United States, whether born here or abroad, should get to be a citizen until age 18, at which time each such resident has to take a test.” — Eric Liu

42. “President Obama’s proposal to raise the top rate to 39 percent is equal to the rate under President Clinton in the 1990s when Wall Street reached record high levels, and the economy produced lots of jobs.” — Juan Williams

43. “I reiterate my proposal of creating life sentences for politicians who make deals with organized criminals. They deserve the maximum penalty because a politician that makes deals with criminals.” — Josefina Vazquez Mota

44. “We’ve got this proposal which has been languishing in the legislature, the Water Legacy Act, which is derived from a Republican task force on protecting the Great Lakes. Yet nothing has been done on it.” — Jennifer Granholm

45. “Every once in a while, I get the highly inappropriate proposal which is like, ‘Wow, Really! You don’t even know me, and I don’t know you at all, and you want that to happen? Tonight? Ok, I get off work at 7.30.’” — Dwayne Johnson

46. “Because of their low earnings and family obligations, Latinas would not be putting much money into private investment accounts. An average Latina could wind up losing thousands of dollars under this proposal.” — Grace Napolitano

47. “I was obsessed with The Who. I would have accepted a marriage proposal from Roger Daltrey on the spot. I went to all of their shows in San Francisco and some in L.A. That was as close as I got to being a groupie.” — Jennifer Egan

48. “In 2003, this House voted to kill a Democratic amendment to add $250 million for port security grants; then again, in 2005, against a Democratic proposal calling for an additional $400 million in funding for port security.” — Russ Carnahan

49. “I used to be an editor, and I was editing young adult series. I didn’t really like the books that I was reading, so I decided that I would write a book about something I’d want to read if I was 16. It turned into a Cinderella story. I developed a proposal and the characters of Gossip Girl for my job.” — Cecily von Ziegesar

50. “Now the proposal is yet again another $150 billion before we start to think about a freeze. But $150 billion spent on more government programs, monies being created to direct, and what kind of jobs that Washington thinks ought to be created. Come on. I mean, there is a government that can help, and the government can also hurt.” — Eric Cantor