I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

I hate all politics. I don’t like either political party. One should not belong to them – one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you’ve got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I’m not sure any country, either the United States or I don’t hear of anyone else, who’s willing to take on that responsibility.

Particularly Instagram, people look like they have a much better life than they really do. People basically seem like they are way better-looking than they really are, and they are way happier-seeming than they really are.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

If we depend for our happiness on another, on society or on environment, they become essential to us; we cling to them, and any alteration of these we violently oppose because we depend upon them for our psychological security and comfort.

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.

History shows that, more often than not, loss of sovereignty leads to liberalisation imposed in the interests of the powerful.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

I have not endorsed Trump and will not do so.

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.

The intense happiness of our union is derived in a high degree from the perfect freedom with which we each follow and declare our own impressions.

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

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.

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

There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement.

Hyperinflation can take virtually your entire life’s savings, without the government having to bother raising the official tax rate at all.

A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot? The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

We need an adult in the White House. When making life-or-death, war-or-peace decisions, a president can’t just pop off or lash out irrationally.

There were the questions of what kind of First Lady I would be, what issues would I focus on. Those were the questions that were being pounded on me through the campaign. A lot of times, I wondered what in the world Barack was even getting us into.

Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.

A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn’t anticipate.

I’ve always been very happy. I’ve always been easy going and I’ve always been very encouraging; it’s just my personality.

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

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

There is little success where there is little laughter.

Happy the people whose annals are vacant.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

Taking care of children has nothing to do with politics. I think perhaps with time, instead of there being a politicization of humanitarian aid, there will be a humanization of politics.

The earth laughs in flowers.

Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.

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.

My songs have always been frustrating themes, relationships that I’ve had. And now that I’m in love, I expect it to be really happy, or at least there won’t be half as much anger as there was.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

To try to become happy is to try to build a machine with no other specifications than it shall run noiselessly.

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.

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

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

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

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

The Bill of Rights is not an a la carte menu.

How happy had it been for me had I been slain in the battle. It had been far more noble to have died the victim of the enemy than fall a sacrifice to the rage of my friends.

If this were all to go away tomorrow, all the big success, I would still be very happy going from bar to bar playing music for people.