I have a reputation for taking on governors a lot more powerful than me.

Locally, I’ll vote one way and nationally, maybe another.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

Lincoln said you cannot be President without spending some item on your knees. I have repeated that and a bunch of Atheists got all over me. Wait a minute. Does that mean that you cannot be President if you are an Atheist? I say yea that does mean that.

The U.S.S.R. had absolutely nothing to do with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

Every revolutionary ends up either by becoming an oppressor or a heretic.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.

Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

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.

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

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

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm his Soviet counterparts by saying that surely they’d both unite against an invasion from Mars.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

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

Every President wants to do right.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.

I am never going to have anything more to do with politics or politicians. When this war is over I shall confine myself entirely to writing and painting.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

We are not about to send American boys 9 or 10 thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.

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

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

It’s plain hokum. If you can’t convince ‚em, confuse ‚em. It’s an old political trick. But this time it won’t work.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows – marriage does.

America is just downright mean.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

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

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

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 would remind you the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

People make a big fuss over you when you’re President. But I’m very serious about doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t go to my head.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‚Present‘ or ‚Not guilty.‘

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

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

There’s no political point worth my son’s life.

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.

Politics is applesauce.

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.

People do not make wars; governments do.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

I will not run for president. No, nope, not going to do it.