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.

Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is.

What is politics? Political system is equal to development politics plus political politics.

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

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.

My entire childhood was steeped in poverty. For me, poverty, in a way, was the first inspiration of my life, a commitment to do something for the poor.

I have spoken about inflation, unemployment, farmers‘ problems, security, etc. I keep talking about these issues. I seek answers from the Indian government.

I’m not a big politics guy.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

As a matter of fact, I didn’t make a political speech outside of my state for 20 years.

The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of because words diminish your feelings – words shrink things that seem timeless when they are in your head to no more than living size when they are brought out.

Political courage is not political suicide.

All movements go too far.

The hardest thing for – not only an artist but for anybody to do is look themselves in the mirror and acknowledge, you know, their own flaws and fears and imperfections and put them out there in the open for people to relate to it.

When Reagan left office, he was the most unpopular living president, apart from Nixon, even below Carter. If you look at his years in office, he was not particularly popular. He was more or less average. He severely harmed the American economy.

It’s the poorer people in tropical zones who will get really hit by climate change – as well as some ecosystems, which nobody wants to see disappear.

I never fall in love.

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.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

No one is pro-abortion.

We’re a phenomenally snobby society, and it’s such a rich seam. The middle class is so funny: it’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.

I personally never expected anything of Obama, and wrote about it before the 2008 primaries. I thought it was smoke and mirrors.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

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.

How can we help President Obama?

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

If you believe that tax policy has nothing to do with the economy, then you’re pretty much like a rock, only dumber.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

Every time somebody speaks of my honesty, there is someone who quivers inside me.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

For a sitting U.S. president to see our allies as freeloaders is nuts.

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

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 Caroline Kennedy managed to say ‚you know‘ more than 200 times in an interview with the New York ‚Daily News,‘ and on 130 occasions while talking to ‚The New York Times‘ during her uninspired attempt to become a hereditary senator, she proved, among other things, that she was (a) middle-aged and (b) middle class.

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

I was raised in a family where vulnerability was barely tolerated: no training wheels on our bicycles, no goggles in the pool, just get it done. And so I grew up not only with discomfort about my own vulnerability, I didn’t care for it in other people either.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

As a country, we can’t teach kids how to read and write when we got 18 years to do it. And that’s – that’s a disgrace.

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

Israel is a pretty crazy state.

I think politicians really go with the tide.

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

I’m an emotional person. Sometimes I can’t help it.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

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

As a vulnerability researcher, the greatest barrier I see is our low tolerance for vulnerability. We’re almost afraid to be happy. We feel like it’s inviting disaster.

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.

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

We are all the President’s men.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

The poorest people are the sweetest people.

I would not vote for the mayor. It’s not just because he didn’t invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.

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.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

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

The U.S. immigration laws are bad – really, really bad. I’d say treatment of immigrants is one of the greatest injustices done in our government’s name.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.