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.‘

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else’s religion, but he’ll accept his gold.

The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.

I love being able to be political without any political affiliation.

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.

I have decided in 2020 to run for president.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can’t run a state.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

When I joined the freedom movement in Mississippi in my early 20s, it was to come to the aid of sharecroppers, like my parents, who had been thrown off the land they’d always known – the plantations – because they attempted to exercise their ‚democratic‘ right to vote.

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

Finishing second in the Olympics gets you silver. Finishing second in politics gets you oblivion.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

Scientists are not delinquents. Our work has changed the conditions in which men live, but the use made of these changes is the problem of governments, not of scientists.

Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.

I think the whole stigma of ‚black movies‘ is slowly being lost. When you look at movies like ’12 Years A Slave,‘ to ‚The Butler,‘ to ‚The Best Man,‘ to ‚Ride Along,‘ to even ‚Think Like a Man‘ from last year – these movies are just good movies.

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.

Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.

I am making a collection of the things my opponents have found me to be and, when this election is over, I am going to open a museum and put them on display.

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Not everybody is comfortable with the idea that politics is a guilty addiction. But it is.

When you work as a humanitarian, you are conscious that politics have to be considered. Because if you really want to make an extreme change, then you have a responsibility.

You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive! Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!

The symbolism of the climate strike is that if you adults don’t give a damn about my future, I won’t either.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change.

Politics… have always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

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.

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

It’s a good thing we don’t get all the government we pay for.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

I think it’s important to vote.

Kathleen Wynne and her band of radical-left cronies think they have a handle on what constitutes human identity and also what should constitute human morality. And I think that that’s being pushed in a manner in schools that’s completely reprehensible. It’s not education, in my estimation. It’s a form of indoctrination.

I think, in politics, half the people are gonna like you, and half the people are not gonna like you, no matter what you do or what you say… It’s like there are no right answers. If there were, everyone would choose the right answers. They’re all opinions.

If I don’t run for president, we’ll all be OK.

Politics are a very unsatisfactory game.

Our goal in the ’70s was to end the closed door era. There were so many things that were off limits to women: policing, firefighting, mining, piloting planes.

Fidel Castro, whatever people may think of him, is a hero in Latin America, primarily because he stood up to the United States.

We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, period.

Politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.

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.

Free government is the most difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that the plain people will make fewer mistakes than any other group of men, no matter how powerful.

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.

Nothing is being done to stop the climate and ecological emergency from happening and to secure the future wellbeing for future generations.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You’ve got to just stand there and take it.

In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

I don’t write policy for my government.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‚fat cat‘ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‚public-spirited philanthropist‘.

Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

And frankly, I don’t understand – I mean, I’m obviously a card-carrying Democrat – but I can’t understand why any woman would want to vote for Mitt Romney, except maybe Mrs. Romney.