A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there’s no question about it.

For me, education was power.

I am such a political person.

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling the desire.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

If you learn a martial art, you learn to be dangerous, but simultaneously, you learn to control it.

I’ve studied authoritarianism for a very long time – for 40 years – and they’re started by people’s attempts to control the ideological and linguistic territory.

Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.

I think governments can’t do much.

Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, there love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.

Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.

If we want to reduce poverty and misery, if we want to give to every deserving individual what is needed for a safe existence of an intelligent being, we want to provide more machinery, more power. Power is our mainstay, the primary source of our many-sided energies.

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

F2 cars have downforce; they’re quick. But it’s difficult for your brain and eyes to keep up with everything that’s going on once you’re in an F1 car. You get used to it and you learn to stay calm, because if you react too quickly the opposite will happen. Being more relaxed is when it becomes more natural and controlled.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

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

I lived in a dictatorship in Brazil, and I was arrested three times. I felt in my flesh what it is to live under such a regime and experience deprivation of freedom.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

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!

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself in man.

I do have a political agenda. It’s to have as few regulations as possible.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.

Nature has always had more force than education.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

The strength and power of a country depends absolutely on the quantity of good men and women in it.

For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

Washington isn’t a city, it’s an abstraction.

Ninety-nine percent of the men and women of the FBI… are just professionals. I don’t want Americans, if an FBI agent knocks on their door, to have to be worried about well, is he a Democrat or a Republican? He’s an FBI agent.

Our focus needs to be less on what our legacy’s going to be or how we can control each other and more how we can give to each other.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

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

He chose to honor us with His priesthood. So we honor Him by honoring His priesthood – both its power and those who bear it.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

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

All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.

The biggest difference in the wet between F2 and F1 is that there’s so much more power in F1 as being on the throttle earlier has a bigger advantage.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

What then do you call your soul? What idea have you of it? You cannot of yourselves, without revelation, admit the existence within you of anything but a power unknown to you of feeling and thinking.

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.

I think the first British actor who really worked well in cinema was Albert Finney. He was a back-street Marlon Brando. He brought a great wittiness and power to the screen. The best actor we’ve had.

Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.