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.

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.

I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work.

Nothing will work unless you do.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

A faction willing to take the risks of making war on the ossified status quo in the Middle East can be described as many things, but not as conservative.

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.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

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

I’m not a politician. And I don’t want to be.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

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.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

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 am only an average man but, by George, I work harder at it than the average man.

A lot of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into this career of mine.

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

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.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

I am such a political person.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

I’ve been blessed to be somebody that’s been climbing that success mountain top for years of hard work, you know, but now it’s all connecting. And now, the whole world is watching, you know what I’m saying, and it feels good ‚cause it’s good energy. This is all positive vibes, and good vibes and good energy, so it feels incredible.

I had real plans for my next decade and felt I’d worked hard enough to earn it. Will I really not live to see my children married? To watch the World Trade Center rise again? To read – if not indeed write – the obituaries of elderly villains like Henry Kissinger and Joseph Ratzinger?

You cannot mix sports with politics.

Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince.

Government actually grew during the Reagan years.

The one charm about marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

Talent without working hard is nothing.

Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.

Our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted – folks who work hard for what they have, then reach back and help others after them.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

And Barack and I were raised with so many of the same values, like you work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond; that you do what you say you’re going to do. That you treat people with dignity and respect, even if you don’t know them and even if you don’t agree with them.

Success comes to those who have an entire mountain of gold that they continually mine, not those who find one nugget and try to live on it for fifty years.

Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that either the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I’ve been around. He’s fresh, he’s new, he’s insightful.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

I loved being Secretary of State, that’s probably evident to everyone who watched me.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

I know Gov. Christie. We’ve met a couple of times.

It is true that the king has made a truce with the duke of Burgundy for fifteen days and that the duke is to turn over the city of Paris at the end of fifteen days. Yet you should not marvel if I do not enter that city so quickly.

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

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.

You have to put in many, many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

You can’t get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

The harder I work, the luckier I become.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

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.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It’s the other way around. They never vote for us.

‚Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars.‘ Guess what? Yes, we do in one regard: We want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn’t have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super-wealthy. That’s not a tax raise. That’s called fairness where I come from.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.