One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

Liberal: a power worshipper without power.

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

I don’t run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

I said on the equality side of it, that it is essential to a woman’s equality with man that she be the decision-maker, that her choice be controlling.

Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

How can we help President Obama?

It sure is hell to be president.

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.

I always wanted to do things right and represent myself as somebody that took the art serious and someone that took the business serious also, so I had time to weigh the options and figure it out and do my best to create the situation that was ideal.

Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

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.

Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

Of course we all know Biden is the intellect of the Democratic Party. Kind of a grin with a body behind it.

I have learned, in my life and work as a sportswriter, that big-time Sports and big-time Politics are not so far apart in America. They are both a means to the same end, which is victory… And why not? Victory is good for you, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

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

You think that the heads of state only have serious conversations, but they actually often begin really with the weather or, ‚I really like your tie.‘

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it – oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

If you’re sick and tired of the politics of cynicism and polls and principles, come and join this campaign.

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.

Obama’s not Jesus. He can’t walk on water.

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

There’s no political point worth my son’s life.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

I think whenever something is – whenever there’s something that affects the public good, then there does need to be some form of public oversight.

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

Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated.

You can’t be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who’s for you and who’s against you.

I don’t need a successor, only willing hands to accept the torch for a new generation.

I think governments can’t do much.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right- for you’ll be criticized anyway. You’ll be damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.

One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problem, some issue that was going on. And he’d say, ‚Boss, we’ve got this, and that, and the other thing.‘ And I’d look at him and I’d say, ‚Good.‘

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

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.

I think with the Romans, that the general of today should be a soldier tomorrow if necessary.

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.

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

I have a cult-like following because I exemplify what it is to be a human being.

When the best leader’s work is done the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

Steve Jobs‘ ability to focus in on a few things that count, get people who get user interface right, and market things as revolutionary are amazing things.

No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

It’s nice to say let’s be bipartisan. But we’re a partisan nation. We were raised as a partisan nation.

Every President I think I’ve ever known, except Truman, has thought they didn’t quite get done what they wanted done. And toward the end of their Administrations, they were disappointed and wished they had done some things differently.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

Example is leadership.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right.

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.

Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.

I think one of the basic reasons men make good friends is that they can make up their minds quickly.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it’s different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principal part.