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

Treat those who are good with goodness, and also treat those who are not good with goodness. Thus goodness is attained. Be honest to those who are honest, and be also honest to those who are not honest. Thus honesty is attained.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

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.

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so.

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

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

Moderation has been called a virtue to limit the ambition of great men, and to console undistinguished people for their want of fortune and their lack of merit.

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

Love means to love that which is unlovable; or it is no virtue at all.

Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.

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

To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

People do not make wars; governments do.

There’s no such thing as going to a soapbox and saying, ‚The government’s corrupt,‘ and not having the intelligence service see your face. In the digital world, that can be done.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

Virtue is relative to the actions and ages of each of us in all that we do.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

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

A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him.

Virtue she finds too painful an endeavour, content to dwell in decencies for ever.

God is the same God, always and everywhere. He is omnipresent not virtually only, but also substantially, for virtue cannot subsist without substance.

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.

When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

One isn’t necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

Of all virtues and dignities of the mind, goodness is the greatest, being the character of the Deity; and without it, man is a busy, mischievous, wretched thing.

Crime when it succeeds is called virtue.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.

Empire and liberty.

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

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples‘ money.

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.

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

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

Since I’m the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it’s understandable that people are saying, you know, ‚What have you done?‘

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

I do not believe that government should be in the business of telling women what they should do with their bodies.

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

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

The FBI should not be a political body.

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.

The bargain that yields mutual satisfaction is the only one that is apt to be repeated.

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

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.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

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

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.