One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.

Remember, no one decides who they’re going to vote for based on the vice president. I mean that literally.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

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.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

There are more pleasant things to do than beat up people.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

I’m not a politician. And I don’t want to be.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

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

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

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

The United States tyrannizes and pillages the globalized world with its political, economic, technological, and military might.

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.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.

The idea that putting Americans ‚first‘ requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens.

People who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.

We’ve switched from a culture that was interested in manufacturing, economics, politics – trying to play a serious part in the world – to a culture that’s really entertainment-based.

Half a truth is better than no politics.

I look after people.

I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly. Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. If you’re sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me – so am I.

I’m not a conservative of any kind.

That fatal drollery called a representative government.

In a democracy, allegations will never improve situations. So, I’m against allegations, but I always welcome criticism.

I have been a firm believer in the federal structure of our country as enshrined in the Constitution.

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

I would not vote for the mayor. It’s not just because he didn’t invite me to dinner, but because on my way into town from the airport there were such enormous potholes.

I’ll be honest: I haven’t ruled politics out.

When we believe the best of people, we let go of each thing they do that is hurtful to us. And we choose to think things like, ‚I don’t believe they meant to hurt me.‘ ‚Maybe they’re having a bad day or don’t feel well.‘ ‚They probably don’t even realize how they sound.‘

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Charity bestowed upon those who are worthy of it is like good seed sown on a good soil that yields an abundance of fruits. But alms given to those who are yet under the tyrannical yoke of the passions are like seed deposited in a bad soil. The passions of the receiver of the alms choke, as it were, the growth of merits.

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.

Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.

Compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.

Ethiopia didn’t just blow my mind; it opened my mind. Anyway, on our last day at this orphanage a man handed me his baby and said, ‚Would you take my son with you?‘ He knew, in Ireland, that his son would live, and that in Ethiopia, his son would die.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

I am not the Catholic candidate for President. I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for President, who happens also to be a Catholic.

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.

Even after Independence, we have had to face the poison of casteism and communalism. How long these evils will continue? Whom does it benefit?

If the Soviet Union let another political party come into existence, they would still be a one-party state, because everybody would join the other party.

God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

It is one of the beautiful compensations in this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Although I’ve been living in the British Virgin Islands for some time now, I have never stopped caring passionately about the U.K. and its great people.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

One of the things I’ve never been accused of is not caring about people.

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

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

You must pursue this investigation of Watergate even if it leads to the president. I’m innocent. You’ve got to believe I’m innocent. If you don’t, take my job.

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