Because of my parents‘ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

For me, America is really, truly the indispensable nation.

Concentration of executive power, unless it’s very temporary and for specific circumstances, let’s say fighting world war two, it’s an assault on democracy.

Our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.

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.

In America, there’s a failure to appreciate Europe’s leading role in the world.

My mami and papi love my music. They’re always listening to the radio waiting for one of my songs to come on. And when it does, they turn up the volume – and turn it back down when it’s over.

That is America. That is America. Those bonds of affection; that common creed. We don’t fear the future; we shape it. We embrace it, as one people, stronger together than we are on our own.

The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

In Europe first and now in America, elected men have taken it upon themselves to indebt their people to create an atmosphere of dependency. And why? For their own selfish need to increase their own personal power.

I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

The tragedy of America is that it entered all the wars with a consensus in favor of them, but within a defined period, the legitimacy of the war became a major domestic issue, with some people arguing that withdrawal was the only legitimate objective.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

My Democratic friends just can’t accept the fact that the American people chose Donald Trump to be president – it’s called democracy. My advice to them, and I say this gently: Fill out a ‚Hurt Feelings Report‘ and let’s move on.

Chicago gave me more music than any other city in America.

We have the best government that money can buy.

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

Democracy is not static. It is a living force. Every new idea, every new invention offers opportunity for both good and evil.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

China has to go along with world trends. That’s democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn’t be playing football.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

You think I’m going to ask these sweet 14 year olds to ask their parents to buy a $100 ticket then run around in latex and lip sync? No way.

I think our democracy has it exactly right: two terms, eight years. It’s enough. Because it’s important to have one foot in reality when you have access to this kind of power.

America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

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.

My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

We don’t want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.

I’m not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it’s almost like we’re living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it’s like a big reality show.

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

I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes.

I saw what happened when a dictator was allowed to take over a piece of a country and the country went down the tubes. And I saw the opposite during the war when America joined the fight.

When I was growing up, my parents were almost involved in various volunteer things. My dad was head of Planned Parenthood. And it was very controversial to be involved with that.

I knew I was blessed with a gift of having both parents.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

The glamour of it all! New York! America!

I grew up cursing a lot. It felt natural. My parents told me to stop.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

In the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, it now seems clear that the shock of the attacks was exploited in America.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

The only definition by which America’s best days are behind it is on a purely relative basis.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.

America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.

Laughter is America’s most important export.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It’s a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

I don’t think the Christian Right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do.

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America.