If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everyone in good society holds exactly the same opinion.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

I believed what my father taught me about the separation of church and state, so when I was President I never invited Billy Graham to have services in the White House because I didn’t think that was appropriate. He was injured a little bit, until I explained it to him.

For Forms of Government let fools contest; whatever is best administered is best.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

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

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

I don’t think even ungodly people realize what a society would be like that had no godly influence at all.

If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men.

When I look at public opinion, I’m not far out of the mainstream. I’m in it, in many respects. In some respects, public opinion goes beyond anything I’ve ever said.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

You need to understand, if you take out a government, take out a regime, guess who becomes the government and regime and is responsible for the country? You are. So if you break it, you own it.

I’m trying to make God more relevant in our society.

The issues that cross a president’s desk are never easy. The easy questions don’t even get to the president.

In our seeking for economic and political progress, we all go up – or else we all go down.

I think governments can’t do much.

The more people smoke herb, the more Babylon fall.

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.

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

A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism.

If we do not maintain justice, justice will not maintain us.

The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.

My objection to Liberalism is this that it is the introduction into the practical business of life of the highest kind namely, politics of philosophical ideas instead of political principles.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

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

I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

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

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.

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.

Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

I’m going to stay active as long as I can politically, and with the Carter Center primarily, and if I’m able mentally and physically, will continue to be quite active.