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

The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.

We didn’t become the most prosperous country in the world just by rewarding greed and recklessness. We didn’t come this far by letting the special interests run wild. We didn’t do it just by gambling and chasing paper profits on Wall Street. We built this country by making things, by producing goods we could sell.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don’t do that, we really deserve the world we get.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

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

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.

I have something in common with Nazis in that I am opposed to the radical Left. And when you oppose the radical Left, you end up being a part of a much larger group that includes Nazis in it.

I’ll be honest: I haven’t ruled politics out.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

Once upon a time my political opponents honored me as possessing the fabulous intellectual and economic power by which I created a worldwide depression all by myself.

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

When George W. Bush came into office, North Korea had maybe one nuclear weapon and verifiably wasn’t producing any more.

The worship of the golden calf of old has found a new and heartless image in the cult of money and the dictatorship of an economy which is faceless and lacking any truly human goal.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

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.

If you’re worried about the deficit, pay attention to the fact that it’s almost all attributable to military spending and the totally dysfunctional health program.

Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

What Englishman will give his mind to politics as long as he can afford to keep a motor car?

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows – marriage does.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

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

Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both had exceptional natural abilities. Nelson Rockefeller was very good statewide but never gained national traction.

How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?

I have not endorsed Trump and will not do so.

Women are the engine driving the growth in California’s economy. Women make California’s economy unique.

And they that rule in England, in stately conclaves met, alas, alas for England they have no graves as yet.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of the United States.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Now, anybody who thinks that we can move this economy forward with just a few folks at the top doing well, hoping that it’s going to trickle down to working people who are running faster and faster just to keep up, you’ll never see it.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

Yup, the whole birther movement was racist.

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

And frankly, I don’t understand – I mean, I’m obviously a card-carrying Democrat – but I can’t understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney, except maybe Mrs. Romney.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.

Politics, according to the Social Doctrine of the Church, is one of the highest forms of charity, because it serves the common good. I cannot wash my hands, eh? We all have to give something!

The inquiry constantly is what will please, not what will benefit the people. In such a government there can be nothing but temporary expedient, fickleness, and folly.

World War II broke out in 1939, and many people credit that war with saving the economy.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

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

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

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

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

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