Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

Having a mind that is open to everything and attached to nothing seems to me to be one of the most basic principles that you can adopt to contribute to individual and world peace.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.

Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Empire and liberty.

When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility.

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

Those people in New York are not gonna change me none.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.

Since I’m the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it’s understandable that people are saying, you know, ‚What have you done?‘

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

Sometimes what works 40 years ago doesn’t work today.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor.

As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort to violence, which will surely fail, will simply frighten and alienate some who can be reached, and will further encourage the ideologists and administrators of forceful repression.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

The world around me has changed, and I have learned to adapt but not change. But I’m changing into the woman I am meant to be.

I found that the corridors of power in Delhi were littered with lobbies of various kinds.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.

Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.

Nothing so needs reforming as other people’s habits.

To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies. So it is something in which no one believes and to which no one objects.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

‚Hope and change‘ has become a cliche in our nation, and it is daunting to think that any American could hope for change from what God has blessed.

Music can change the world because it can change people.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

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

I think the worst part about a breakup sometimes, if one could choose a worst part, would possibly be if you get out of a relationship, and you don’t recognize yourself because you changed a lot about you.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.

I disagree with everything I used to say.

When we value correct principles, we have truth – a knowledge of things as they are.

When we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, something wonderful happens: God begins to change our desires, and we want to be more like Him.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.