I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics – a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage – surely that proves that you are in the right?

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

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

During the Enron debacle, it was workers who took the pounding, not bankers. Not only did Enron employees lose their jobs, many lost their retirement savings. That’s because they were at the bottom of the investing food chain.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

Government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.

Remember, it is not about voting for the perfect candidate – there is no such thing. Presidents are human.

Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we’ve got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.

There’s no doubt that usually a president’s public image is enhanced by going to war. That never did appeal to me.

Nobody is above the law. Imagine if there allegations against Modi and he is the Prime Minister. Should the case not be pursued just because he has become the PM. It should not be so that it should be stopped. I am not above the law.

Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

I’m substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They’re sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they’re hitting back and forth.

Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world. It’s minuscule, few percent.

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.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

A reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

If people continue to feel like Democrats are looking after poor folks and Republicans are looking after rich folks and nobody is looking after me, then we don’t get a lot of stuff done. And the trend lines evidence the fact that folks have gotten squeezed. And obviously, 2007, 2008 really ripped open for people how vulnerable they were.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

You’ve got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

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.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

I can’t go out with a Republican.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

The last thing you want to do is raise taxes in the middle of the recession because that would just suck up and take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole.

When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility.

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

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

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

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

Let me just be very clear that the Republican Party will select a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton.

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 know the Federal Reserve Bank can continue to print more and more money… but city and state governments cannot.

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.

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

We can choose a future where we export more products and outsource fewer jobs. After a decade that was defined by what we bought and borrowed, we’re getting back to basics, and doing what America has always done best: We’re making things again.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.

I do not think I could myself be brought to support a man for office whom I knew to be an open enemy of, and scoffer at, religion.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

I don’t write policy for my government.

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

The trouble with Nixon is that he’s a serious politics junkie. He’s totally hooked and like any other junkie, he’s a bummer to have around, especially as President.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

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.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.