In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

How easy it is to govern when one follows a system of consulting the will of the people and one holds as the only norm all the actions which contribute to the well being of the people.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

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.

The world is a republic of mediocrities, and always was.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

Marx and Engels never talked about murdering the bourgeois. According to the old bourgeois concept, the judges were the ones who judged, and the executioners were the ones who executed.

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

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Nobody is above the law. Imagine if there allegations against Modi and he is the Prime Minister. Should the case not be pursued just because he has become the PM. It should not be so that it should be stopped. I am not above the law.

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term ‚reform‘ is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

This country is being managed to death, being public related to death.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

The first book I ever really read was Plato’s ‚Republic,‘ and then I had to go over that five times or something.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

A radical generally meant a man who thought he could somehow pull up the root without affecting the flower. A conservative generally meant a man who wanted to conserve everything except his own reason for conserving anything.

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

I draw pleasure in governance, in doing new things and bringing people together. That pleasure is all I need from life.

President Obama seems completely unaware of how many of the policies he is trying to impose have been tried before, in many times and places around the world, and have failed time and again.

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

The first requisite of a good citizen in this republic of ours is that he shall be able and willing to pull his own weight.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

For me every ruler is alien that defies public opinion.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Governance should be designed as an equalizer. Democrats are more inclined towards working families and those who are struggling for a better life.

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People.

Tyrants have always some slight shade of virtue; they support the laws before destroying them.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

I don’t write policy for my government.

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

I do think there should be some regulations on AI.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man’s virtues the means of deceiving him.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.

Finality is not the language of politics.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

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

Men and women may form associations for and among themselves and be governed by stipulations that are mutually acceptable.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

I like Gramsci. He’s an important person.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

Man is not free unless government is limited.