Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

Politics are a very unsatisfactory game.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t make a political speech outside of my state for 20 years.

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

There were the questions of what kind of First Lady I would be, what issues would I focus on. Those were the questions that were being pounded on me through the campaign. A lot of times, I wondered what in the world Barack was even getting us into.

Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning.

Quite frankly, Russian aggression in Ukraine and its illegal occupation of Crimea remind us that we still have a good deal more work to do to guarantee the strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

Foe means enemy. Now, will we have differences of opinion with the Russians? Yes. Will they get mad at us from time to time, and we get mad at them? That’s part of the normal diplomatic relations.

For the record, our democracy is revered around the world. And free elections are the best way on Earth to choose our leaders. This is how we elected John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; two George Bushes; Bill Clinton; and Barack Obama. It has worked for decades.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

I’ve never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country.

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

If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

I have considered voting Conservative because I am so against the Labour party.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

War is never a lasting solution for any problem.

I can’t go out with a Republican.

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

A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism.

I grew up in an environment where being polite was taken as a weakness. So I just fought everybody.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

China and the U.S. need each other very badly. Yes, we should argue about some things, but it’s not an ‚us versus them,‘ it’s an ‚us and them‘ type scenario.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

For many of the world’s conflicts, it is difficult even to conjure up a feasible settlement.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

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.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one.

The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour.

When you feel like it’s too hard to obey God, remember that He will never tell you to do something without giving you the grace, power and ability to do it.

You don’t want to negotiate the price of simple things you buy every day.

The issues that cross a president’s desk are never easy. The easy questions don’t even get to the president.

I’m not a big politics guy.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‚fat cat‘ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‚public-spirited philanthropist‘.

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.

This land is your land and this land is my land, sure, but the world is run by those that never listen to music anyway.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

I think that man has a fundamental obligation to extract from himself and from the earth all that it can give; and this obligation is all the more imperative that we are absolutely ignorant of what limits – they may still be very distant – God has imposed on our natural understanding and power.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to.

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

No matter how hard we might wish, we will not be able to transform China’s behavior overnight.

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

I found that the corridors of power in Delhi were littered with lobbies of various kinds.

You must show the world that you abhor fighting.

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.