For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

Children sweeten labours, but they make misfortunes more bitter.

Letters are among the most significant memorial a person can leave behind them.

You have to motivate yourself with challenges. That’s how you know you’re still alive.

Economic freedom cannot be sacrificed if political freedom is to be preserved.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

I hope when I’m dead I’ll be considered an icon, though.

I don’t think generally politician come from democratic country. I think not that thinking. But sometimes little bit short-sighted. They are mainly looking for their next vote.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

Actually oddly enough, I think my work, the activism, will be forgotten. And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy – which many believe goes hand in hand with it – will be dead as well.

Legacy is a stupid thing! I don’t want a legacy.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

Although the life of a person is in a land full of thorns and weeds, there is always a space in which the good seed can grow. You have to trust God.

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God – my daughter to my country.

You can live within the institutions and work hard to change them.

The greatest use of a life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government – that is despotism.

Life is a matter of really tough choices.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

Governance should be designed as an equalizer. Democrats are more inclined towards working families and those who are struggling for a better life.

Elections should be held on April 16th- the day after we pay our income taxes. That is one of the few things that might discourage politicians from being big spenders.

No one who knew Diana will ever forget her. Millions of others who never met her, but felt they knew her, will remember her.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

My life is a struggle.

A whole people with the ballot in their hands possess the most conclusive and unlimited power ever entrusted to humanity.

Every President I think I’ve ever known, except Truman, has thought they didn’t quite get done what they wanted done. And toward the end of their Administrations, they were disappointed and wished they had done some things differently.

I would as soon leave my son a curse as the almighty dollar.

Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power. And concentration of political power gives rise to legislation that increases and accelerates the cycle.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

Tariffs that save jobs in the steel industry mean higher steel prices, which in turn means fewer sales of American steel products around the world and losses of far more jobs than are saved.

I loved being Secretary of State, that’s probably evident to everyone who watched me.

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Nothing is so discouraging to an actor than to have to work for long hours upon hours in brightly lighted interior sets.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

Great men, unknown to their generation, have their fame among the great who have preceded them, and all true worldly fame subsides from their high estimate beyond the stars.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

From behind the Iron Curtain, there are signs that tyranny is in trouble and reminders that its structure is as brittle as its surface is hard.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

How can we help President Obama?

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

That’s correct, I flunked out of high school twice because I couldn’t write.

We have to build the capacity of our institutions, employees and workers. Our regulatory environment has not been encouraging to research, innovation and enterprise.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.