Democracy is our commitment. It is our great legacy, a legacy we simply cannot compromise. Democracy is in our DNA.

Africans require, want, the franchise on the basis of one man one vote. They want political independence.

No man wants to settle down. It happens. Eventually you’re going to bump into somebody that makes you go, ‚Hmm, I don’t mind seeing this person every day.‘

China has to go along with world trends. That’s democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

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

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.

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.

By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.

I don’t let even a day go by wherein I don’t give at 100 per cent.

Marriage is scary to me, man.

Everybody loves you when you’re six foot in the ground.

I’ve always felt toward the slightest scene, even if all I had to do in a scene was just to come in and say, ‚Hi,‘ that the people ought to get their money’s worth and that this is an obligation of mine, to give them the best you can get from me.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

My mother fought cancer for almost a decade and died at 56. She held out long enough to meet the first of her grandchildren and to hold them in her arms. But my other children will never have the chance to know her and experience how loving and gracious she was.

Those that are most slow in making a promise are the most faithful in the performance of it.

First, I want to pay tribute to Diana myself. She was an exceptional and gifted human being. In good times and bad, she never lost her capacity to smile and laugh, nor to inspire others with her warmth and kindness. I admired and respected her – for her energy and commitment to others, and especially for her devotion to her two boys.

If you’re going to spend two years of your life on something, it has to matter to you; you have to be passionate about it.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

I think women love very hard. We love men. We just love with everything we have. And sometimes, I don’t know that that love is met with the type of dignity that we wish it would be met with.

On ‚Grey’s Anatomy‘ I wouldn’t care what I was playing – I would play a corpse, ‚cause I love it that much. It is deep true love, and it will never die.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

A principle is the expression of perfection, and as imperfect beings like us cannot practise perfection, we devise every moment limits of its compromise in practice.

The day I think I’m not enjoying the game and contributing the way I would like to, I’ll hang up my boots.

I was always trying – I never wanted to let my fans down; I always wanted them to see me in my art form.

My wife and I don’t compete. We know each other’s preferences, and we work to provide those for each other. One will take over when the other is faced with something he or she dislikes. That’s what friends do.

Overcoming fear is the first step to success for entrepreneurs. The winners all exemplify that, and the hard work and commitment they have shown underlines what is needed to set up a business.

Whatever woman may cast her lot with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention to do all in my power to make her happy and contented; and there is nothing I can imagine that would make me more unhappy than to fail in the effort.

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

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

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

Once you have six children, you’re committed.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

That was always the difference between Muhammad Ali and the rest of us. He came, he saw, and if he didn’t entirely conquer – he came as close as anybody we are likely to see in the lifetime of this doomed generation.

The thing most people don’t pick up when they become an entrepreneur is that it never ends. It’s 24/7.

I don’t like to commit myself about heaven and hell – you see, I have friends in both places.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Better a broken promise than none at all.

I’m glad I can’t vote.

Trying to read our DNA is like trying to understand software code – with only 90% of the code riddled with errors. It’s very difficult in that case to understand and predict what that software code is going to do.

If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my life.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

We don’t believe in planners and deciders making the decisions on behalf of Americans.

I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be ‚Citizens United.‘ I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.

For my name and memory I leave to men’s charitable speeches, and to foreign nations and the next ages.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

All the blood is drained out of democracy – it dies – when only half the population votes.

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

She would have thrived as a grandmother. I know how much she would have contributed to their lives, and I am sad they will miss out on that.