Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

The name Zahra was to have been lman’s own name at birth, but a senior member of the family changed it to lman at the last minute.

I had three points I wanted to make: That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.

I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United States‘ response was to attack Afghanistan, where some of the terrorists had been.

Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ‚solve the climate crisis.‘ But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

I pay attention to politics and technology.

Since I’m the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it’s understandable that people are saying, you know, ‚What have you done?‘

When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.

Every time I hear a politician mention the word ‚stimulus,‘ my mind flashes back to high school biology class, when I touched battery wires to a dead frog to make it twitch.

The United States supports a strong, united Ukraine with productive and peaceful relationships with both the East and the West, with both Russia and Europe.

Now we’re in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change – we’re doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change – inch by inch, day by day.

When you are in any contest, you should work as if there were – to the very last minute – a chance to lose it. This is battle, this is politics, this is anything.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.

The advice I’ve been giving to people all my life – that you may not be interested in the dialectic but the dialectic is interested in you; you can’t give up politics, it won’t give you up – was the advice I should have been taking myself.

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

America is not nearly done. We’re only in the beginning. Who knows who we will be? Who knows… what color we will be? It is all something that, maybe, our descendants – if they survive that long – will see.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

I never accepted Communist dogma or theory.

I am such a political person.

I think Canadians are more interested in international events than Americans because it is such a small country, so politics affect it more.

There are some members of the House leadership whose only mission in life is to demonize the president.

When Reagan left office, he was the most unpopular living president, apart from Nixon, even below Carter. If you look at his years in office, he was not particularly popular. He was more or less average. He severely harmed the American economy.

I don’t think that a Justice should have uppermost in her mind, ‚A Democratic president appointed me, so I must leave to be sure that another Democratic president can appoint my successor.‘

In our age there is no such thing as ‚keeping out of politics.‘ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

Cruel leaders are replaced only to have new leaders turn cruel.

Our friends at the Republican convention were more than happy to talk about everything they think is wrong with America, but they didn’t have much to say about how they’d make it right. They want your vote, but they don’t want you to know their plan.

I would just like to say something, ladies and gentlemen. Something that I think is very important. It is that, you, we – we own this country. We – we own it. It is not you owning it, and not politicians owning it. Politicians are employees of ours.

A part of me has become immortal, out of my control.

Nationalism has a way of oppressing others.

Change is always tough. Even for those who see themselves as agents of change, the process of starting a new thing can cause times of disorientation, uncertainty and insecurity.

I’m not looking to freak people out – eating rodents or bugs. I don’t do that anymore.

Trump is a national disgrace and an international pariah.

Trump just looks stupid trying to appeal to blacks and Latinos.

It is as hard and severe a thing to be a true politician as to be truly moral.

Politics have no relation to morals.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

We got rid of a terrible dictator. We gave the Iraqi people an opportunity for a new life under a representative form of government.

Winning the election is a good-news, bad-news kind of thing. Okay, now you’re the mayor. The bad news is, now you’re the mayor.

I will not run for president. No, nope, not going to do it.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

If people continue to feel like Democrats are looking after poor folks and Republicans are looking after rich folks and nobody is looking after me, then we don’t get a lot of stuff done. And the trend lines evidence the fact that folks have gotten squeezed. And obviously, 2007, 2008 really ripped open for people how vulnerable they were.

I wanted to imbue Ziggy with real flesh and blood and muscle, and it was imperative that I find Ziggy and be him.

I don’t write policy for my government.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

The United States is unusual among the industrial democracies in the rigidity of the system of ideological control – ‚indoctrination‘, we might say – exercised through the mass media.

Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

Nothing recedes like progress.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with it fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze.

Excess generally causes reaction, and produces a change in the opposite direction, whether it be in the seasons, or in individuals, or in governments.

Part of the problem is there are people in Washington, D.C. in positions of power to whom the border is just a nuisance, and I think some of them believe that illegal immigration is a moral good. It is not. It undermines legal immigration.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

To remain a credible leader, I must always work first, hardest, and longest on changing myself. This is neither easy nor natural, but it is essential.

Politically there were failures. And also on the personal level, there were tremendous failures.

I was an Eisenhower Republican when I started out at 21 because he promised to get us out of the Korean War.

I groan daily under a body of sin and corruption. Oh for the time when I shall drop this flesh, and be free from sin!