Politics is the art of controlling your environment.

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

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

Politics is the womb in which war develops.

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

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of the United States.

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.

Errors are not in the art but in the artificers.

Music is something no one can control.

It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

The U.S.S.R. had absolutely nothing to do with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.

I believe we can continue the Great Society while we fight in Vietnam.

And I think it’s that time. And I think if you just step aside and Mr. Romney can kind of take over. You can maybe still use a plane. Though maybe a smaller one. Not that big gas guzzler you are going around to colleges and talking about student loans and stuff like that.

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

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting ‚the rich‘ to pay ‚their fair share‘ is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.

One should never forbid what one lacks the power to prevent.

Why should we think upon things that are lovely? Because thinking determines life. It is a common habit to blame life upon the environment. Environment modifies life but does not govern life. The soul is stronger than its surroundings.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that… I believe in what I do, and I’ll say it.

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.

Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance.

Next to the Word of God, the noble art of music is the greatest treasure in the world.

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

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

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’ve analyzed the best I can… and I have not found an impeachable offense, and therefore resignation is not an acceptable course.

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world.

Germany has reduced savagery to a science, and this great war for the victorious peace of justice must go on until the German cancer is cut clean out of the world body.

Music helps me tell my story. That’s where I can really be heard. But there’s so much focus on the things that aren’t music.

Climate change is a terrible problem, and it absolutely needs to be solved. It deserves to be a huge priority.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.

The artist forges himself to the others, midway between the beauty he cannot do without and the community he cannot tear himself away from. That is why true artists scorn nothing: they are obliged to understand rather than to judge.

When someone does a small task beautifully, their whole environment is affected by it.

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

Art, like morality, consists in drawing the line somewhere.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

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.

A family with the wrong members in control; that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

We have art in order not to die of the truth.

To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

I don’t really regard myself as a political figure.

The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.

I’m born with a pencil in my hand. I did lots of sketching.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

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.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

How can we help President Obama?

My production and songwriting and the environment around those vocals are not inspired by R&B at all.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

Part of what made the Macintosh great was that the people working on it were musicians, poets, and artists, and zoologists, and historians. They also happened to be the best computer scientists in the world. But if it hadn’t been computer science, these people would have been doing amazing things in other fields.

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

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

Instead of stubbornly attempting to use surrealism for purposes of subversion, it is necessary to try to make of surrealism something as solid, complete and classic as the works of museums.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.