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

The measure of a man is what he does with power.

God always has patience.

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.

This world of ours… must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

The revolution has always been in the hands of the young. The young always inherit the revolution.

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

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

What I admire most about Hillary is that she never buckles under pressure. She never takes the easy way out. And Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life.

We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

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

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

I have a cult-like following because I exemplify what it is to be a human being.

If I am not, may God put me there; and if I am, may God so keep me.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

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.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

There are people who are really good managers, people who can manage a big organization, and then there are people who are very analytic or focused on strategy. Those two types don’t usually tend to be in the same person. I would put myself much more in the latter camp.

When I started Virgin from a basement in west London, there was no great plan or strategy. I didn’t set out to build a business empire… For me, building a business is all about doing something to be proud of, bringing talented people together and creating something that’s going to make a real difference to other people’s lives.

My age is very insignificant to me. I don’t think about it, but the world does. The world likes young people in general.

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues – of my comrades in the movement – who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand Points of Light. This is my mission, and I will complete it.

Mature love is composed and sustaining; a celebration of commitment, companionship, and trust.

People do not make wars; governments do.

My game is really played above time. I don’t say that like I’m saying I’m ahead of my time. I’m saying, like, if I’m on the court and I throw a pass, the ball that I’ve thrown will lead my teammate right where he needs to go, before he even knows that that’s the right place to go to.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

When I joined the freedom movement in Mississippi in my early 20s, it was to come to the aid of sharecroppers, like my parents, who had been thrown off the land they’d always known – the plantations – because they attempted to exercise their ‚democratic‘ right to vote.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that’s what’s happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

I’ve had some ‚riotous excursions of the human spirit‘ alongside the young Sailors and Marines, and it’s time to leave the stage to the young leaders who got their rank the old-fashioned way – they earned their stripes in combat.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress ‚suspects.‘

The very word ‚secrecy‘ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

The Lord can give, and the Lord can take away. I might be herding sheep next year.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

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.

For every benefit you receive a tax is levied.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

I can analyze people’s intentions. Immediately. That’s just a warning. To everyone.

It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating those who work with me and aiming their efforts at a certain goal.

When you want a thing done, ‚Don’t do it yourself‘ is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

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.

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you’ve got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I’m not sure any country, either the United States or I don’t hear of anyone else, who’s willing to take on that responsibility.

Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a romance.

The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

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

As President Nixon says, presidents can do almost anything, and President Nixon has done many things that nobody would have thought of doing.