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

There’s nothing like white trash at the White House.

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

As his vice president for eight years, I learned more from Ronald Reagan than from anyone I encountered in all my years of public life.

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

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.

All the United States, it is a society that is split like to the bottom, that had very poor people in the country that is one of the wealthiest countries.

I don’t know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, period.

My job is to play quarterback, and I’m going to do that the best way I know how, because I owe that to my teammates regardless of who is out there on the field with me.

I haven’t been very active in politics.

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

I think that people are tired. They’re tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

When Britain and the U.S. invaded Iraq, it was with the reasonable expectation that it was going to increase the threat of terror, as it has.

I don’t think a Jewish or Christian or Islamic state is a proper concept. I would object to the United States as a Christian state.

If you’re in business or politics, you need to have an intense understanding of what’s going on around you.

I am not made for politics because I am incapable of wanting or accepting the death of the adversary.

International affairs is very much run like the mafia. The godfather does not accept disobedience, even from a small storekeeper who doesn’t pay his protection money. You have to have obedience; otherwise, the idea can spread that you don’t have to listen to the orders, and it can spread to important places.

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

But for me to have the opportunity to stand in front of a bunch of executives and present myself, I had to hustle in my own way. I can’t tell you how frustrating it was that they didn’t get that. No joke – I’d leave meetings crying all the time.

I want to use my position of leadership to help move along at a faster pace what I believe and know the Obama administration wants to do around the urgency of climate change.

It is unnecessary to say that Fidel Castro possesses the high qualities of a fighter and statesman: our path, our struggle, and our triumph we owed to his vision.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove – disapprove of their point of view.

I think when the president of the United States calls for military action, he should do it for a united people, especially when the methods have been so cruel, so explicitly directed at Americans.

Leadership is influence.

If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Politics has always been ugly to me, and yet I accept that as a fact of life.

Some day I shall be President.

Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.

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.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution.

In general, I think, U.S. policies remain constant, going back to the Second World War. But the capacity to implement them is declining.

A company is a group organized to create a product or service, and it is only as good as its people and how excited they are about creating. I do want to recognize a ton of super-talented people. I just happen to be the face of the companies.

Nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like.

Doing nothing while the middle class is hurting. That’s not leadership. Loose regulations and lax enforcement. That’s not leadership. That’s abandoning our middle class.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

The path to the CEO’s office should not be through the CFO’s office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design.

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

The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore.

Every citizen has the real right to receive general education and professional training at no cost, something that the United States has not been able to ensure for all its inhabitants.

The most successful politician is he who says what the people are thinking most often in the loudest voice.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

Iraq is a long way from the U.S., but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

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.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

Politics is not a game. It is an earnest business.

China is a great manufacturing center, but it’s actually mostly an assembly plant. So it assembles parts and components, high technology that comes from the surrounding industrial – more advanced industrial centers – Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, the United States, Europe – and it basically assembles them.

You are twice as likely to be struck by lightning as you around to be affected by a terrorist event in the United States.

In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against the other NATO powers, but not against the United States.

Always do everything you ask of those you command.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‚to be prepared‘.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

The true measure of the value of any business leader and manager is performance.

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

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.