All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda. We will not sacrifice the liberties we cherish or hunker down behind walls of suspicion and mistrust.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

My son Emilio is running for Congress to continue the fight for social justice.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.

Not brute force but only persuasion and faith are the kings of this world.

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

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

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

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

Politics is just a function of business now, just a tributary of the great entrepreneurial capitalist system.

Be extra careful in the work environment with those who like to maintain their position through charm and being political, rather than getting things done. They are very prone to envying and hating those who work hard and get results. They will slander and sabotage you without any warning.

Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I’m blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

The Vietnamese people deeply love independence, freedom and peace. But in the face of United States aggression they have risen up, united as one man.

It is a paradox that every dictator has climbed to power on the ladder of free speech. Immediately on attaining power each dictator has suppressed all free speech except his own.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

I’m going to stay active as long as I can politically, and with the Carter Center primarily, and if I’m able mentally and physically, will continue to be quite active.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

I’ve said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

Every country must be absolutely free to adopt the type of economic, political and social system that it considers convenient.

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president… is morally treasonable to the American public.

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

‚Tis best to weigh the enemy more mighty than he seems.

Power is the great aphrodisiac.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.

Mandela’s heroism is the heroism of a man who suffered so badly for what he thought of as freedom. And yet when he had the upper hand he has this incredible self-control and these incredible leadership qualities.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

I think Clinton, after getting into office and into Washington, was shocked at being bludgeoned. So he spent time trying to be all things to all people – one way guaranteed not to be successful or respected in a lion’s den. You can’t just play around with all those big cats – you’ve got to take somebody on.

Power is a complicated word and can take many forms.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

All impeachments, I guess, are political.

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

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

Even after Independence, we have had to face the poison of casteism and communalism. How long these evils will continue? Whom does it benefit?

Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.

Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.

We cannot expect that all nations will adopt like systems, for conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

We must be willing to pay a price for freedom.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

You don’t need a lot of credentials to be prison guard in a federal prison. And, you know, you give them a set of keys and a weapon, and they’re in power.

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

Every President wants to do right.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

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

Ladies and gentlemen, god bless America – land of the free, home of the brave.