A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

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?

The President is always abused. If he isn’t, he isn’t doing anything.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

Our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.

I don’t even know what the issues are. I haven’t paid attention to politics in a long time. It’s actually not something that I really even enjoy. It’s way off my radar.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

It isn’t generally the case that liberals dominate entire hierarchies. That isn’t generally how it works, because the hierarchies are usually set up so that conservatives fill up the hierarchies; it’s in the nature of hierarchy.

One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

I think Hillary Clinton is a phenomenal woman, and I’ve gotten to know her, and I think she’s made some pretty major contributions over the course of her life.

I’m highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don’t feel in tune with British politics.

Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.

Ohio claims they are due a president as they haven’t had one since Taft. Look at the United States, they have not had one since Lincoln.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

I would not vote for the mayor. It’s not just because he didn’t invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

You can’t just have slogans, you can’t just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it’s going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

There has come into being a kind of a Shia belt from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut. And this gives Iran the opportunity to reconstruct the ancient Persian Empire – this time under the Shia label.

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

I don’t really regard myself as a political figure.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

I think that if I would talk on a political subject, if I talk about it, it would divide the audience on that issue. That’s not my issue.

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.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

Obama himself has been highly supportive of Mubarak.

If people wonder, yes, Hillary Clinton is my friend. She has been a friend to me and Barack and Malia and Sasha, and Bill and Chelsea have been embracing and supportive from the very day my husband took the oath of office.

Liberals seem to assume that, if you don’t believe in their particular political solutions, then you don’t really care about the people that they claim to want to help.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

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

This election is about who’s going to be the next President of the United States!

I still think like a Marxist in many ways.

Being president isn’t anything like reality TV. It’s not about sending insulting tweets or making fiery speeches; it’s about whether or not the candidate can handle the awesome responsibility of leading this country.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

Turkey must find its place if, of course, it can heal its internal sores, and none is more malignant than the perennial Kurdish issue.

Government actually grew during the Reagan years.

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

I don’t want to express my opinion about actual politics, because if I do, I have to be responsible for my decision.

When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

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.

For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.