It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

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.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

Politics is a noble activity. We should revalue it, practise it with vocation and a dedication that requires testimony, martyrdom, that is to die for the common good.

There were the questions of what kind of First Lady I would be, what issues would I focus on. Those were the questions that were being pounded on me through the campaign. A lot of times, I wondered what in the world Barack was even getting us into.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Politics have no relation to morals.

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Politics is for the present, but an equation is for eternity.

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

I’ll say things that are serious and put them in a joke form so people can enjoy them. We laugh to keep from crying.

I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people’s trust in their government.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

I know Gov. Christie. We’ve met a couple of times.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I must have read every issue of ‚Punch‘ published in the 20th century, and I think in the process I picked up the true voice of English humour – that amiable, fairly liberal, laconic voice which you find in something like ‚Three Men in a Boat.‘

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

It’s very difficult for the American people to believe that our government, one of the richest on Earth, is also one of the stingiest on Earth.

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa’s leading organization – and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

I feel lucky that I can have people laugh solidly for a whole hour by just saying what I think and getting paid for it.

Well, Howard Stern has been doing his impression of me for years. It doesn’t really bother me.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

Ronald Reagan used to alarm other constituencies by speaking freely about the End Times foreshadowed in the Bible.

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

I’ve rarely kept my distance from kind of – I don’t know if we can call it politics, but kind of, civic engagement and that kind of thing, except I tended to think, ‚Well, do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.‘

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

I look just like the girls next door… if you happen to live next door to an amusement park.

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

Any lady who is first lady likes being first lady. I don’t care what they say, they like it.

I perhaps ought to say that individually I never was much interested in the Texas question. I never could see much good to come of annexation, inasmuch as they were already a free republican people on our own model.

Laughter is America’s most important export.

We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn’t come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn’t resurging. It didn’t work out.

Politics are a very unsatisfactory game.

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

Turkey must find its place if, of course, it can heal its internal sores, and none is more malignant than the perennial Kurdish issue.

When I came to Johannesburg from the countryside, I knew nobody, but many strangers were very kind to me. I then was dragged into politics, and then, subsequently, I became a lawyer.

In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against it.

By 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

If somebody’s dumb enough to ask me to go to a political convention and say something, they’re going to have to take what they get.

I’m glad I’m not Brezhnev. Being the Russian leader in the Kremlin. You never know if someone’s tape recording what you say.

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.

I will never retire from politics, the revolution, or the ideas I have.

Nixon was no more a saint than he was a great president.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

I’m spending a year dead for tax reasons.

I have not endorsed Trump and will not do so.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

Look, when you’re the president, there’s all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it’s just the nature of the job.

I don’t like politicians, and I don’t like politics. I definitely don’t want to be associated with any of them.