For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

Sometimes I wonder if we shall ever grow up in our politics and say definite things which mean something, or whether we shall always go on using generalities to which everyone can subscribe, and which mean very little.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

Be the chief but never the lord.

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.

The thing is, if you control the Senate meetings, you control the gavel. And the gavel is a very important instrument… an instrument of power. An instrument that establishes the agenda.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

I can’t go out with a Republican.

People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

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.

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

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

A good model of how to ‚work with the enemy‘ internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet.

I don’t want to tell President Obama how to make a speech. He’s a much better speech maker than I am. But I think always to tell the truth in a sometimes blatant way, even though it might be temporarily unpopular, is the best approach.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

I understand everybody in this country doesn’t agree with the decisions I’ve made. And I made some tough decisions. But people know where I stand.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors.

Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power.

You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you’re held responsible for everything, but you don’t always have control of everything, right?

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.

Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I’ve met with, and I’ve met them all: It’s never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,‘ he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. ‚Shake it off. Stop complainin‘. Stop grumblin‘. Stop cryin‘. We are going to press on. We have work to do.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.

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 am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.

I’m not a one-man show. I was never that in my life, and I never want to be that.

It’s amazing, the culture Coach Belichick has been able to create in our system.

Nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like.

Compromise used to mean that half a loaf was better than no bread. Among modern statesmen it really seems to mean that half a loaf; is better than a whole loaf.

The fundamental question I believe is, ‚Is political Islam in our best interest?‘ If not, what is our policy to authoritatively support the countervailing forces?

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

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

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.

Show me a poorly uniformed troop and I’ll show you a poorly uniformed leader.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.

The story being told in ‚Star Wars‘ is a classic one. Every few hundred years, the story is retold because we have a tendency to do the same things over and over again. Power corrupts, and when you’re in charge, you start doing things that you think are right, but they’re actually not.

It was the Congress that imposed ‚Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,‘ it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.

Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

All very successful commanders are prima donnas and must be so treated.

I hate all politics. I don’t like either political party. One should not belong to them – one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.

If I don’t run for president, we’ll all be OK.

I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as ‚us‘ and ‚them‘ – he doesn’t care whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or none of the above… he knows that we all love our country… and he’s always ready to listen to good ideas… he’s always looking for the very best in everyone he meets.

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

A candidate is not going to suddenly change once they get into office. Just the opposite, in fact. Because the minute that individual takes that oath, they are under the hottest, harshest light there is. And there is no way to hide who they really are.

The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore.

Nothing can be more hurtful to the service, than the neglect of discipline; for that discipline, more than numbers, gives one army the superiority over another.

Leaders must invoke an alchemy of great vision.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

In our age there is no such thing as ‚keeping out of politics.‘ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.