Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

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

I think a big test we all face in life on a regular basis is that discouragement test. Life’s not always fair, but I believe if you keep doing the right thing, God will get you to where you are.

It’s impossible, I think, however much I’d become disillusioned politically or evolve into a post-political person, I don’t think I’d ever change my view that socialism is the best political moment humans have ever come up with.

I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.

I believe many people feel like God is mad at them.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

Economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity.

Concentration of executive power, unless it’s very temporary and for specific circumstances, let’s say fighting world war two, it’s an assault on democracy.

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.

The White House is the finest prison in the world.

My life has been long, and believing that life loves the liver of it, I have dared to try many things, sometimes trembling, but daring still.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?

Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

I used to say to my late wife, ‚I have great faith in the American people.‘

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.

It’s plain hokum. If you can’t convince ‚em, confuse ‚em. It’s an old political trick. But this time it won’t work.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

I believe in the spirit of equality and the spirit of this country as one of love and compassion and kindness.

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he’s African American.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

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.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

God helps those who help themselves.

It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive.

Look, when you’re the president, there’s all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it’s just the nature of the job.

Anger is wonderful. It keeps you going. I’m angry about bankers. About the government.

The IRS! They’re like the Mafia, they can take anything they want!

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.

What do you think a stimulus is? It’s spending – that’s the whole point! Seriously.

Here’s something that’s contrary to popular belief: I actually don’t like thinking. I think people think I like to think a lot. And I don’t. I do not like to think at all.

I don’t think even ungodly people realize what a society would be like that had no godly influence at all.

Prayer is the key of the morning and the bolt of the evening.

Nixon was no more a saint than he was a great president.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

El Salvador is a democracy so it’s not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans… I have heard a single voice.

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.

We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we’re atheist.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

I think that people are tired. They’re tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

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

This thing comes to me, not by the hearing of the ear, but by my own personal experience: I know of a surety that Jesus manifests Himself unto His people as He doth not unto the world.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.