The British constitution has always been puzzling and always will be.

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

You cannot mix sports with politics.

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

For Africa to me… is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he arrived at his present place.

Historically, the stuff of the universe goes on becoming concentrated into ever more organized forms of matter.

You may write me down in history with your bitter, twisted lines. You may trod me in the very dirt, but still, like dust, I’ll rise.

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You’re looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

Politics is just a function of business now, just a tributary of the great entrepreneurial capitalist system.

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

Divorce is probably of nearly the same date as marriage. I believe, however, that marriage is some weeks the more ancient.

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

Capitalism has worked very well. Anyone who wants to move to North Korea is welcome.

In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.

Free government is the most difficult of all government. But it is everlastingly true that the plain people will make fewer mistakes than any other group of men, no matter how powerful.

If you don’t know your full-throttle history, the whole story of how you came to where you are, it’s kind of hard to put things together.

King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

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

There might be some serious fun in politics.

If a secret history of books could be written, and the author’s private thoughts and meanings noted down alongside of his story, how many insipid volumes would become interesting, and dull tales excite the reader!

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

The Center for Disease Control started out as the malaria war control board based in Atlanta. Partly because the head of Coke had some people out to his plantation, and they got infected with malaria, and partly ‚cause all the military recruits were coming down and having a higher fatality rate from malaria while training than in the field.

We have listened too long to the courtly Muses of Europe.

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.

I became an actress because my mom wanted me to become an actress. It took me until my mid-30s to realize I actually didn’t. I actually wanted to write and direct and be more involved in politics and humanitarian issues.

I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

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

The people are hungry: It is because those in authority eat up too much in taxes.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

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.

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

If you think you can slander a woman into loving you, or a man into voting for you, try it till you are satisfied.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

Politically, the world is so confused right now – there’s so much suffering caused by various movements by various parties and people in power in government.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

I kept a very full diary of my relationship with Nixon, for some strange reason, until he became president.

For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself.

There will be no end to the troubles of states, or of humanity itself, till philosophers become kings in this world, or till those we now call kings and rulers really and truly become philosophers, and political power and philosophy thus come into the same hands.

One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

If anyone thinks they’d rather be in a different part of history, they’re probably not a very good student of history. Life sucked in the old days. People knew very little, and you were likely to die at a young age of some horrible disease. You’d probably have no teeth by now. It would be particularly awful if you were a woman.

Being president isn’t anything like reality TV. It’s not about sending insulting tweets or making fiery speeches; it’s about whether or not the candidate can handle the awesome responsibility of leading this country.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

I think that people are tired. They’re tired of the same old kind of politics. People want a new tone to politics.

We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive. Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive! Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive!

I’ve said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

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.

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

Running for office is similar to being a trial lawyer in a very long trial. It requires adrenaline and stamina; it requires being in shape mentally and emotionally. It’s a marathon.

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

As soon as I arrived in the Indies, in the first island which I found, I took some of the natives by force, in order that they might learn and might give me information of whatever there is in these parts. And so it was that they soon understood us, and we them, either by speech or by signs, and they have been very serviceable.