Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

I’m substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They’re sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they’re hitting back and forth.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

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

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

Empire and liberty.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

A Christian who does not pray for those who govern is not a good Christian.

As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort to violence, which will surely fail, will simply frighten and alienate some who can be reached, and will further encourage the ideologists and administrators of forceful repression.

ESPN is a great organization to work for.

When hiring somebody, I never ask to see a curriculum vitae. I feel that since I didn’t have one myself, it would be a bit presumptuous to ask to see anyone else’s.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

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

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

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

We must always remember that America is a great nation today not because of what government did for people but because of what people did for themselves and for one another.

Politics have no relation to morals.

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.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

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

All government, of course, is against liberty.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

Anger is wonderful. It keeps you going. I’m angry about bankers. About the government.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

The problem with being an employee or self-employed is you pay the highest taxes.

Early on, when I was quite young and going from job to job, I was foolish enough to sometimes speak to my fellow workers: ‚Hey, the boss can come in here at any moment and lay all of us off, just like that, don’t you realize that?‘ They would just look at me. I was posing something that they didn’t want to enter their minds.

People do not make wars; governments do.

I’m a working-class person, working with class.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

I loved being Secretary of State, that’s probably evident to everyone who watched me.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.