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

I am the son of a freedom fighter, and a son of a freedom fighter automatically imbibes the value of democracy.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can’t run a state.

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

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.

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.

I’m highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don’t feel in tune with British politics.

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.

An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry.

I’ll be glad to reply to or dodge your questions, depending on what I think will help our election most.

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

I think America has always been polarized.

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.

Democracy is not static. It is a living force. Every new idea, every new invention offers opportunity for both good and evil.

John F. Kennedy was the victim of the hate that was a part of our country. It is a disease that occupies the minds of the few but brings danger to the many.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against.

Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

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.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

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

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

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

In the political system, we are a team; politics and bureaucracy, we are a team. The politicians, bureaucrats and the people, we are a team.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

In a democracy, in a functioning democracy, what would be happening is that popular organizations, unions, political groupings, others would be developing their programs, putting them forth, insisting that their representatives implement those programs.

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that’s what’s happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

We are not to give credit to the many, who say that none ought to be educated but the free; but rather to the philosophers, who say that the well-educated alone are free.

We just seem to have lost all our morals and principles and values these days.

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

I know the Federal Reserve Bank can continue to print more and more money… but city and state governments cannot.

Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

The Democratic position seems to be everything is going to be free. Free education. Free health care. Free housing. Free love. Free kittens, I don’t know.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

Popular art is the dream of society; it does not examine itself.

Unlike my opponent, I will not let oil companies write this country’s energy plan, or endanger our coastlines, or collect another $4 billion in corporate welfare from our taxpayers.

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

I would probably have more in common with a whale than with a bourgeois married couple employed at worthy institutions that I would wipe from the face of the earth if it was given to me to do so.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

If the battle for civilization comes down to the wimps versus the barbarians, the barbarians are going to win.

There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

I neither will aspire to nor will I accept, the position of president of the council of state and commander in chief.

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.

So far as the government is concerned, there is only one holy book, which is the constitution of India. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

I’m glad I can’t vote.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

I had just as much support from Republicans as I did Democrats when I ran for president. But I should have organized the Democratic Party to get me re-elected.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

I think, under President Obama, who was a really bright guy – I didn’t agree with a lot of his politics – but we got to the point internationally where our friends didn’t trust us. They were confused. And our enemies didn’t quite respect us.