Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind.

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

Man, all lives matter.

The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the state governments, in times of peace and security.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Most members of Congress are politicians. They’re bores.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

There might be some serious fun in politics.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

Dogmas are collective conceptual prisons. And the strange thing is that people love their prison cells because they give them a sense of security and a false sense of ‚I know.‘ Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its dogmas.

I don’t vote. I don’t do no voting.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

We should not look at terrorism from the nameplates – which group they belong to, what is their geographical location, who are the victims. These individual groups or names will keep changing. Today you are looking at the Taliban or ISIS; tomorrow you might be looking at another name.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa, and if we’re honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

Up until the First World War, when people turned anti-German, Germany had been described by American political scientists as the model of democracy.

Quite frankly, Russian aggression in Ukraine and its illegal occupation of Crimea remind us that we still have a good deal more work to do to guarantee the strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

A very large majority of the U.S. population is in favor of establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba and has been for a long time with some fluctuations. And even part of the business world is in favor of it, too. But the government won’t allow it.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

I am the commander in chief of the United States armed forces, and Iraq is gonna have to ultimately provide for its own security.

Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

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

Our public life withers when only the most extreme voices get attention. Most of all, democracy breaks down when the average person feels their voice doesn’t matter; that the system is rigged in favor of the rich or the powerful or some narrow interest.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

I’m going to be a vice president very much like George Bush was. He proved to be a very effective vice president, perhaps the most effective we’ve had in a couple of hundred years.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

The FBI should not be a political body.

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

I don’t follow politics much.

I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.

NATO has been a thread throughout my life.

Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It’s basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it’s wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there’s no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

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.

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

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

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

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be ‚Citizens United.‘ 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.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

People forget… that we structured it so that the government, or the people, would be repaid with a really good rate of return. And as it turns out, that aspect of TARP, that’s what happened.

I’m focusing on me. I’m focusing on my family’s security, my family’s financial security, so that’s all I can do.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.