Don’t interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

Just as courage is the danger of life, so is fear its safeguard.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don’t do that, we really deserve the world we get.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

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

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

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

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

I don’t write policy for my government.

We all have a choice. We can create transformational action that will safeguard the living conditions for future generations. Or we can continue with our business as usual and fail.

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

Washington isn’t a city, it’s an abstraction.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

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.

A right delayed is a right denied.

Some of my colleagues argue that by further curtailing our Second Amendment rights, they can enhance public safety. Fine, the burden of proof is on them.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

When we wrote the Constitution, the intention was to give the commander in chief the authority how to use the forces when you authorize him to be able to use the forces.

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

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

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.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term ‚reform‘ is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

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.‘

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

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

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

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

A cloudy day or a little sunshine have as great an influence on many constitutions as the most recent blessings or misfortunes.

A Christian who does not pray for those who govern is not a good Christian.