I kept a very full diary of my relationship with Nixon, for some strange reason, until he became president.

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

I guess you’d call me an independent, since I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.

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.

If you’re looking for the safe choice, you shouldn’t be supporting a black guy named Barack Obama to be the next leader of the free world.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies… if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us.

I’m personally a moderate and a registered independent, so I’m not strongly Democratic or strongly Republican.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.

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

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

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

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

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.

Politics… have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

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 governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

Government actually grew during the Reagan years.

Love is the missing factor; there is a lack of affection, of warmth in relationship; and because we lack that love, that tenderness, that generosity, that mercy in relationship, we escape into mass action, which produces further confusion, further misery.

I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.

I am not a crook.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn’t.

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.

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

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.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

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

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

There is no gambling like politics.

Political courage is not political suicide.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

From my standpoint, being an artist, I want to see what the new construction is between artist and audience.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

Are you a politician asking what your country can do for you or a zealous one asking what you can do for your country? If you are the first, then you are a parasite; if the second, then you are an oasis in the desert.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

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

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Being elected to Congress, though I am very grateful to our friends for having done it, has not pleased me as much as I expected.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

You can’t get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

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

The Democratic position seems to be everything is going to be free. Free education. Free health care. Free housing. Free love. Free kittens, I don’t know.

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 most practical kind of politics is the politics of decency.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.

My husband calls me ‚catfish.‘ He says I’m all mouth and no brains.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

All ideologies are idiotic, whether religious or political, for it is conceptual thinking, the conceptual word, which has so unfortunately divided man.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

I had very good support from Democrats and Republicans all throughout my administration. I had a very high batting average. We added more jobs per year in my four years than any other president since the Second World War.