In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.

Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!

If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or ‚our‘ country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits where I have not shared and probably will not share.

I would not vote for the mayor. It’s not just because he didn’t invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.

Politics is a profession; a serious, complicated and, in its true sense, a noble one.

I will continue to believe that Israel’s security is paramount.

The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

It’s empowering to know I am doing something, I am taking a stand, I am disrupting.

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

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

I would remind you the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist.

Standing in support of children is something we should all be able to get behind, regardless of party affiliation.

I love being in a courtroom.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

We are all the President’s men.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

I’ve analyzed the best I can… and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.

I’m not anti-middle-class in the slightest. Look at me! I am very pro people putting time and money and effort into trying to improve the world.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.

There is a group of people that I think in good faith honestly believe that further curtailing our Second Amendment rights will enhance public safety. But there’s another group that just hates the Second Amendment.

Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.

The people who tend to raise antiwar slogans will do so generally when it’s American or British interests involved.

Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

Life is not accumulation, it is about contribution.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

There’s a lot of fuss on the Left about election irregularities, like, you know, the voting machines were tampered with, they didn’t count the votes right, and so on. That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‚election.‘

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

I’m a singer, not a politician, and I think you don’t want the two to get confused. It’s not OK to be on CNN talking about people starving and then tell the interviewer that your new album is coming out in six months.

Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. They’re my biggest heroes. I love everything about Leonard Cohen: his lyrics and his voice. He seems like a really clever man, and Bob Dylan does as well. He’s just really cool.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

When I look back on what I did for the Left, I’m in a small way quite proud of some of it – I only wish I’d done more.

It is a strange trade that of advocacy. Your intellect, your highest heavenly gift is hung up in the shop window like a loaded pistol for sale.

I’m a lad of the ’60s. I started a magazine to try and end the Vietnam war, but it was a number of years before I had the profile, the financial resources and the time to do more.

Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

We can no longer save the world by playing by the rules.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

In the late 1960s, the masses were supposed to be passive, not entering into the public arena and having their voices heard.

Israelis would mostly breathe a sigh of relief if Palestinians were to disappear.

My own feeling is that one should refuse to participate in any activity that implements American aggression – thus tax refusal, draft refusal, avoidance of work that can be used by the agencies of militarism and repression, all seem to me essential.