I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.

Democracy passes into despotism.

The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.

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.

I’m not really conservative. I’m conservative on certain things. I believe in less government. I believe in fiscal responsibility and all those things that maybe Republicans used to believe in but don’t any more.

If you’re in business or politics, you need to have an intense understanding of what’s going on around you.

It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.

No one’s policing their own minds more than an author. You spend a lot of time in your own head analysing what you think about things, and a philosophy comes.

America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

Ever since Newton, we’ve done science by taking things apart to see how they work. What the computer enables us to do is to put things together to see how they work: we’re now synthesized rather than analysed. I find one of the most enthralling aspects of computers is limitless communication.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.

I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

I think that in the discussion of natural problems we ought to begin not with the Scriptures, but with experiments, and demonstrations.

As abhorrent as some of this content can be, I do think that it gets down to this principle of giving people a voice.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

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

Issues are never simple. One thing I’m proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

I’m the first to admit this whole salary thing is getting out of control. In the final analysis, it’s still about the work.

Democracy is the road to socialism.

Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle excellent.

There’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.

But if you – if what – the reports are true, what they’re saying is, is that as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that’s going to increase our costs, we knew that.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

Trying to be fascinating is an asinine position to be in.

For all right judgment of any man or things it is useful, nay, essential, to see his good qualities before pronouncing on his bad.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

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

It is easier to be critical than correct.

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.

Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.

For the record, our democracy is revered around the world. And free elections are the best way on Earth to choose our leaders. This is how we elected John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; two George Bushes; Bill Clinton; and Barack Obama. It has worked for decades.

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read ‚Democracy in America‘ by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

Industry need not wish.

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.

Study men, not historians.

I’ve used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I’ve still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

As a Western, ‚The Magnificent Seven‘ was a pretty good film. I don’t think it was as interesting or as multi-faceted as ‚Seven Samurai.‘

The reactionary is always willing to take a progressive attitude on any issue that is dead.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

Realists do not fear the results of their study.

When you think about it, Adolf Hitler was the first pop star.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

In no instance have… the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.

I seem to smell the stench of appeasement in the air.

If the experiments which I urge be defective, it cannot be difficult to show the defects; but if valid, then by proving the theory, they must render all objections invalid.

So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

If the people of Utah shall peacefully form a State Constitution tolerating polygamy, will the Democracy admit them into the Union?

In a democracy, allegations will never improve situations. So, I’m against allegations, but I always welcome criticism.