All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

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.‘

Unless we place our religion and our treasure in the same thing, religion will always be sacrificed.

King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

When it is a question of money, everybody is of the same religion.

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

The just is close to the people’s heart, but the merciful is close to the heart of God.

I’m interested in that drive, that rush to judgment, that is so prevalent in our society. We all know that pleasurable rush that comes from condemning, and in the short term it’s quite a satisfying thing to do, isn’t it?

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama’s entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

I maintain that Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect.

Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil’s propagation.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.

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.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

Every church is a stone on the grave of a god-man: it does not want him to rise up again under any circumstances.

Whoever seeks to set one religion against another seeks to destroy all religion.

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.

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.

Politics… have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

There is a group of people that I think in good faith honestly believe that further curtailing our Second Amendment rights will enhance public safety. But there’s another group that just hates the Second Amendment.

Before I became a chief minister, I never thought that one day I’d be the chief minister.

I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true.

Every time I hear a politician mention the word ‚stimulus,‘ my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch.

The fundamental question I believe is, ‚Is political Islam in our best interest?‘ If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?

A lot of churches have not moved with the times.

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

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

And while the law of competition may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

I used to carry my father’s Bible and put it on the pulpit so he could preach.

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

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

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

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

Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.

I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement.

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

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.

In Japan, the writers have made up a literary community, a circle, a society. I think 90 percent of Japan’s writers live in Tokyo. Naturally, they make a community. There are groups and customs, and so they are tied up in a way.

There is no surer sign of decay in a country than to see the rites of religion held in contempt.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

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.