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

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

If you destroyed half the pharmaceutical production in the United States, we’d think it’s a pretty serious problem. In fact, we’d probably go to war.

What do you think a stimulus is? It’s spending – that’s the whole point! Seriously.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it’s different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

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

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

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

Our constitution protects aliens, drunks and U.S. Senators.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn’t anticipate.

Law is mind without reason.

Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be ‚Citizens United.‘ I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

Law is always better than war.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

Most members of Congress are politicians. They’re bores.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

Guantanamo is still open, but it’s unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

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

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

The first duty of government is to see that people have food, fuel, and clothes. The second, that they have means of moral and intellectual education.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

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.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

In the United States, one of the main topics of academic political science is the study of attitudes and policy and their correlation. The study of attitudes is reasonably easy in the United States: heavily-polled society, pretty serious and accurate polls, and policy you can see, and you can compare them.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.

Hyperinflation can take virtually your entire life’s savings, without the government having to bother raising the official tax rate at all.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

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

Greece has been, in many ways, a partially dysfunctional society. For example, the wealthy barely pay taxes… to an extent, that’s true elsewhere, including the United States, but it’s been pretty extreme in Greece.

ISIS is not an existential threat to something happening to someone in the United States of America. It’s a serious problem overseas, but it’s confusing and frightening.

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Unlike Europe, China can’t be intimidated. Europe backs down if the United States looks at it the wrong way. But China, they’ve been there for 3,000 years and are paying no attention to the barbarians and don’t see any need to.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

It was an act of patriotism when we worked to pass a law allowing the prosecution of federal hate crimes in the name of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

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

America doesn’t have health insurance.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It’s because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand – demand – demand change.

I consider myself to be as informed on American foreign policy as anyone in America.

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.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.