The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

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.

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

Because in a split second, it’s gone.

To be honest with you, when I got into this I never thought about reviews. I never thought about what people would say about me. I was just a young guy who was excited to become a comedian and an actor and I just wanted to get to do what I got to do.

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting ‚the rich‘ to pay ‚their fair share‘ is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

People don’t realize what they had till it’s gone. Like President Kennedy, there was no one like him, the Beatles, and my man Elvis Presley. I was the Elvis of boxing.

I have been a firm believer in the federal structure of our country as enshrined in the Constitution.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.

I’m the king of the anthems.

The United States tyrannizes and pillages the globalized world with its political, economic, technological, and military might.

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

It’s been my experience in politics that you can try and plan it out: ‚I’m going to hit the three ball which will hit the eight ball.‘ You’ve just got to go run and try to do everything right. And then have a little luck.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all, you must not strip it of vitality.

The elections are run by the same industries that sell toothpaste on television.

Politics has always been ugly to me, and yet I accept that as a fact of life.

I’ve rarely kept my distance from kind of – I don’t know if we can call it politics, but kind of, civic engagement and that kind of thing, except I tended to think, ‚Well, do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.‘

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.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

I’ve always appreciated a turn of phrase.

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.

There is no gambling like politics.

I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? But if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted for Trump.

I subscribe to the myth that an artist’s creativity comes from torment. Once that’s fixed, what do you draw on?

I didn’t die young. So I am very lucky. There are other artists and people that didn’t survive certain things… people can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst… for many reasons, I shouldn’t be here.

I’ve said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

There’s no way now for you to get a Democratic or Republican nomination without being able to raise $200 or $300 million or more. I would not be inclined to do that, and I would not be capable of doing it.

My paintings have gotten to be pretty popular and I’ve taken a little bit more interest in painting the last few years. In fact, my novel that I wrote not too long ago, ‚The Hornet’s Nest,‘ I painted the cover picture for it and I do a good bit of painting now.

I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

We can’t all be heroes, because somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by.

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn’t mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others.

I’ll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

If you’re looking for the safe choice, you shouldn’t be supporting a black guy named Barack Obama to be the next leader of the free world.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

I’ve been asking myself: ‚Why put together these things – CDs, albums?‘ The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it’s artistically viable. It’s not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it’s not obvious or even conscious on the artists‘ part.

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

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

I love people talking about me; I love anybody just looking at me.

You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Every President wants to do right.

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors.

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.

Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it ‚the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.‘ The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man to the sacred name of ‚Artist.‘