A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

The key is to vote because we need a vote to put the people in power that we want to represent us.

Any change is resisted because bureaucrats have a vested interest in the chaos in which they exist.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

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

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

That government is best which governs least.

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

I do not deny that I planned sabotage. I did not plan it in a spirit of recklessness nor because I have any love of violence. I planned it as a result of a calm and sober assessment of the political situation that had arisen after many years of tyranny, exploitation and oppression of my people by the whites.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

Men and women may form associations for and among themselves and be governed by stipulations that are mutually acceptable.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Democracy passes into despotism.

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.

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.

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

El Salvador is a democracy so it’s not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans… I have heard a single voice.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

This country is being managed to death, being public related to death.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

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.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

A whole people with the ballot in their hands possess the most conclusive and unlimited power ever entrusted to humanity.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

Everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

Although we resolutely supported the armed struggle against Batista’s tyranny, we were, on principle, opposed to any terrorist action that could cause the death of innocent people.

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

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

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I draw pleasure in governance, in doing new things and bringing people together. That pleasure is all I need from life.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

I am the son of a freedom fighter, and a son of a freedom fighter automatically imbibes the value of democracy.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

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

President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again.

It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.

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.

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.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.

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.

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities – which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

This young century will be liberty’s century.

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.

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.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

I don’t vote. I don’t do no voting.