Everything isn’t political.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

There must always remain something that is antagonistic to good.

An overflow of good converts to bad.

What’s the use of happiness? It can’t buy you money.

While on top of Everest, I looked across the valley towards the great peak Makalu and mentally worked out a route about how it could be climbed. It showed me that even though I was standing on top of the world, it wasn’t the end of everything. I was still looking beyond to other interesting challenges.

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

I like to talk about my obsession with french fries because I don’t want people to think that ‚Let’s Move‘ is about complete, utter deprivation. It’s about moderation and real-life changes and ideas that really work for families.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

There’s a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts can obscure the truth.

I was a peripheral visionary. I could see the future, but only way off to the side.

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

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I’m taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.

The greatest magnifying glasses in the world are a man’s own eyes when they look upon his own person.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

Brad and I have never wanted our kids to be actors, but we also want them to be around film and be a part of Mommy and Daddy’s life and for it not to be kept from them, either. We just want them to have a good, healthy relationship with it.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had exceptional natural abilities. Nelson Rockefeller was very good statewide but never gained national traction.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this, it is impossible to be warned.

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

A tomb now suffices him for whom the whole world was not sufficient.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

One likes people much better when they’re battered down by a prodigious siege of misfortune than when they triumph.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

To be in opposition is not to be a nihilist.

How can a president not be an actor?

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‘.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.

I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

The choicest pleasures of life lie within the ring of moderation.

There’s a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

Turkey must find its place if, of course, it can heal its internal sores, and none is more malignant than the perennial Kurdish issue.

Just as discipline and freedom are opposing forces that must be balanced, leadership requires finding the equilibrium in the dichotomy of many seemingly contradictory qualities between one extreme and another.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

If the federal government had been around when the Creator was putting His hand to this state, Indiana wouldn’t be here. It’d still be waiting for an environmental impact statement.

Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious.

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting ‚the rich‘ to pay ‚their fair share‘ is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.

I’m seeing the world partially through the eyes of a kid. Not all the time. There’s no black and white to it. But sometimes I’m seeing it like I’m 4.

It is just as important that business keep out of government as that government keep out of business.

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

So let’s be honest with ourselves and not take ourselves too serious, and never condemn the other fellow for doing what we are doing every day, only in a different way.

I don’t even know what the issues are. I haven’t paid attention to politics in a long time. It’s actually not something that I really even enjoy. It’s way off my radar.

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

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

It isn’t generally the case that liberals dominate entire hierarchies. That isn’t generally how it works, because the hierarchies are usually set up so that conservatives fill up the hierarchies; it’s in the nature of hierarchy.