Every time I hear a politician mention the word ‚stimulus,‘ my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch.

How can a president not be an actor?

I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate; and while the debate goes on, the canal does also.

I’m substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They’re sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they’re hitting back and forth.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

We have wasted History like a bunch of drunks shooting dice back in the men’s crapper of the local bar.

I think that if I would talk on a political subject, if I talk about it, it would divide the audience on that issue. That’s not my issue.

I had been told from school onwards that the best definition of a human being was man the tool-maker – yet I had just watched a chimp tool-maker in action. I remember that day as vividly as if it was yesterday.

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.

I have an excellent memory, a most excellent memory.

The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

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’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.

I got a fancy reputation. During high school, every puzzle that was known to man must have come to me. Every damn, crazy conundrum that people had invented, I knew.

Marriage is like a game of chess except the board is flowing water, the pieces are made of smoke and no move you make will have any effect on the outcome.

Well, I have great respect for Senator Hirono.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

The difference between a Republican and a Democrat is the Democrat is a cannibal they have to live off each other, while the Republicans, why, they live off the Democrats.

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

Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible.

Hanging out with politicians and corporations is very unhip work. But I think that the U2 audience have turned out to be incredibly subtle in their understanding.

All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.

You’ve got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

Politics is like football; if you see daylight, go through the hole.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

Hillary doesn’t play. She has more experience and exposure to the presidency than any candidate in our lifetime – yes, more than Barack, more than Bill. So she is absolutely ready to be Commander-in-Chief on day one. And, yes, she happens to be a woman.

Much publishing is done through politics, friends, and natural stupidity.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.

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

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

The connection between psychology, mythology, and literature is as important as the connection between psychology and biology and the hard sciences.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics – a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage – surely that proves that you are in the right?

I always tell people that religious institutions and political institutions should be separate. So while I’m telling people this, I myself continue with them combined. Hypocrisy!

Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things.

If you believe that tax policy has nothing to do with the economy, then you’re pretty much like a rock, only dumber.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‚Present‘ or ‚Not guilty.‘

A Conservative Government is an organized hypocrisy.

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

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

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

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

The Democratic position seems to be everything is going to be free. Free education. Free health care. Free housing. Free love. Free kittens, I don’t know.

Many a man fails as an original thinker simply because his memory it too good.

The President is always abused. If he isn’t, he isn’t doing anything.

Kindnesses are easily forgotten; but injuries! what worthy man does not keep those in mind?

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.

When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

Memory… is the diary that we all carry about with us.

Painting, I think it’s like jazz.

I don’t follow politics much.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

There is no memory or retentive faculty based on lasting impression. What we designate as memory is but increased responsiveness to repeated stimuli.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.