Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you’ve got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I’m not sure any country, either the United States or I don’t hear of anyone else, who’s willing to take on that responsibility.

Every President wants to do right.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

Most people work just hard enough not to get fired and get paid just enough money not to quit.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.

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

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

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

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn’t let them into the family brokerage business.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

I like policy. It’s why I decided to enter government. The other thing I like about government – you have good days, you have bad days, but you never have a boring day, and that’s important to me.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

I’m touring the world, not doing nothing against the law, getting money to feed my family. I got employees that have felonies, and they can’t get jobs. They work for me.

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.

Scientists are not delinquents. Our work has changed the conditions in which men live, but the use made of these changes is the problem of governments, not of scientists.

Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.

I loved being Secretary of State, that’s probably evident to everyone who watched me.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

A Christian who does not pray for those who govern is not a good Christian.

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally sign a bill and everybody says, ‚Gee, isn’t that wonderful?‘

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

ESPN is a great organization to work for.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement.

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

People everywhere in the world are hungry for economic opportunity. And it’s about a lot more than being able to make money.

I have no doubt but that the misery of the lower classes will be found to abate whenever the Government assumes a freer aspect and the laws favor a subdivision of Property.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

The economy’s always been the engine for our national security.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

It sure is hell to be president.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know that the men and women of our intelligence community put their lives on the line every day, and they do very dangerous work to keep our country safe.

No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.