Democracy is the road to socialism.

I do have a political agenda. It’s to have as few regulations as possible.

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

Songs don’t have to be about going out on Saturday night and having a good rink-up and driving home and crashing cars. A lot of what I’ve done is about alienation… about where you fit in society.

In this constant battle which we call living, we try to set a code of conduct according to the society in which we are brought up, whether it be a Communist society or a so-called free society; we accept a standard of behaviour as part of our tradition as Hindus or Muslims or Christians or whatever we happen to be.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

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.

On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.

The White House is the finest prison in the world.

A particularly beautiful woman is a source of terror. As a rule, a beautiful woman is a terrible disappointment.

The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

It is pretty ironic that the so-called ‚least advanced‘ people are the ones taking the lead in trying to protect all of us, while the richest and most powerful among us are the ones who are trying to drive the society to destruction.

The U.S. immigration laws are bad – really, really bad. I’d say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government’s name.

I pay attention to politics and technology.

It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.

Mystical references to society and its programs to help may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.

One of the roles of the Presidency is to lead a political party. Having a President in office is usually a huge advantage to a party because it gives the party a mouthpiece and an advocate at the highest level.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

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.

Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.

I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

Everybody looks like clones and the only people you notice are my age. I don’t notice anybody unless they look great, and every now and again they do, and they are usually 70.

History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.

The French are so into themselves that they don’t even notice you.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

The savage in man is never quite eradicated.

The ‚public‘ scares me, but people I trust.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

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

The finest clothing made is a person’s own skin, but, of course, society demands something more than this.

I really don’t like women who try to be men. All these politicians, I think they’re horrendous. We could have a brilliant future, but we have this terrible male vision of destroying everything. They’d better sort themselves out and become more womanly.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.

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

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

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.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.