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.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

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

It sure is hell to be president.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

The government has completed the entire process to do away with interviews for lower rank jobs. There will be no requirement of interview for Group D,C and B non-gazetted posts in central government.

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

I don’t think the government should be in the trailer-park business. I don’t think they know how to run a trailer park.

The just is close to the people’s heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

The Bill of Rights is not an a la carte menu.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want to do a man justice, you should believe what a man says himself rather than what people say he says.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.

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

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.

Politics have no relation to morals.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

Freedom is not enough.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

An individual’s refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it.

We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

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.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

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

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

When there’s justice and change, you start to see the cleansing of the soul, and that is what I want for people, and I hope it’s okay for me to say those things.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

We think the Dred Scott decision is erroneous. We know the court that made it has often overruled its own decisions, and we shall do what we can to have it overrule this.

Every President wants to do right.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

There are thousands of Palestinians in prison virtually for no reason.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

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

I’m the only president you’ve got.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

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.

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?

In some respects, South African apartheid was more vicious than Israeli practices, and in some respects the opposite is true.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

Democracy passes into despotism.

An unjust peace is better than a just war.

Fear follows crime and is its punishment.