All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

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

An honest man’s the noblest work of God.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

I pay attention to politics and technology.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

Scientists are not delinquents. Our work has changed the conditions in which men live, but the use made of these changes is the problem of governments, not of scientists.

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

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

The IRS! They’re like the Mafia, they can take anything they want!

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

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.

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.

Blushing is the color of virtue.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

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

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue.

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

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

The endeavor to understand is the first and only basis of virtue.

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

Virtue consists, not in abstaining from vice, but in not desiring it.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

I am concerned about the whole man. I am concerned about what the people, using their government as an instrument and a tool, can do toward building the whole man, which will mean a better society and a better world.

I don’t write policy for my government.

My government is working for the common man. Our priority is the poor of the country. We want good governance through a dynamic and seamless government.

Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

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

A lot of people have a sense-of-entitlement mentality that somebody else ought to do these things for them. People are mad at the government for not getting jobs for them. I don’t understand why it’s the government’s responsibility.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

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

If one has a good disposition, what other virtue is needed? If a man has fame, what is the value of other ornamentation?

I think governments can’t do much.

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

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.

People forget… that we structured it so that the government, or the people, would be repaid with a really good rate of return. And as it turns out, that aspect of TARP, that’s what happened.

Antitrust is the way that the government promotes markets when there are market failures. It has nothing to do with the idea of free information.

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.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

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.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

All impeachments, I guess, are political.

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

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

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

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

Every President wants to do right.

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.