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

There is no distinctly American criminal class – except Congress.

The public is a ferocious beast; one must either chain it or flee from it.

Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which we desire.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

I never accepted Communist dogma or theory.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

I just use fashion as an excuse to talk about politics. Because I’m a fashion designer, it gives me a voice, which is really good.

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

The good of the people is the greatest law.

The world is put back by the death of every one who has to sacrifice the development of his or her peculiar gifts to conventionality.

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

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.

The practice of politics in the East may be defined by one word: dissimulation.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

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.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

I have this feeling that the world is not in balance. And people are afraid, but we’re also starting to be really brave.

Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.

I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.

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.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

A candidate is not going to suddenly change once they get into office. Just the opposite, in fact. Because the minute that individual takes that oath, they are under the hottest, harshest light there is. And there is no way to hide who they really are.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

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

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

The masculine spirit is under assault. It’s obvious.

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

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.

I’m not a conservative of any kind.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

We’ve switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics – trying to play a serious part in the world – to a culture that’s really entertainment-based.

I despise people who go to the gutter on either the right or the left and hurl rocks at those in the center.

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

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

I supported Donald Trump.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

There’s only one thing that can kill the movies, and that’s education.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by society.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.