Democracy is the road to socialism.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

Nobody believes in completely unadulterated capitalism.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

The masculine spirit is under assault. It’s obvious.

I believe the home and marriage is the foundation of our society and must be protected.

No one would talk much in society if they knew how often they misunderstood others.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

I find myself hoping a total end of all the unhappy divisions of mankind by party-spirit, which at best is but the madness of many for the gain of a few.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

I like working-class people, generally speaking.

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

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy – but that could change.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.

My heart aches for America and its deceived people.

I don’t write policy for my government.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Socialists tend to want to pay people more money to do less work, and capitalists tend to want to provide better products at better prices.

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

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

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

Music is always a commentary on society.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

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

I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.

Our modern society – especially in the West, and especially now – reveres youth.

Part of your heritage in this society is the opportunity to become financially independent.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

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

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

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

In a democracy, the well-being, individuality and happiness of every citizen is important for the overall prosperity, peace and happiness of the nation.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.

I don’t vote. I don’t do no voting.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

I could become very rich in Guatemala but by the low method of ratifying my title, opening a clinic, and specialising in allergies. To do that would be the most horrible betrayal of the two ‚I’s‘ struggling inside me: the socialist and the traveller.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

If we go on your iPhone and go to the dictionary and look up ‚humble,‘ 80 per cent of the definition is negative. It’s a controlling word. It’s a way to control the masses and to control the sheep.

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.