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

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.

It’s not just a matter of whether you support Obama or Romney. It’s who they have coming with them. I always keep my powder dry, as they say in the military.

I don’t see any possibility of Britain and the U.S. allowing a sovereign independent Iraq; that’s almost inconceivable.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

I found this national debt, doubled, wrapped in a big bow waiting for me as I stepped into the Oval Office.

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.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

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.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world. It’s minuscule, few percent.

Knowledge is power.

In a world of complex threats, our security and leadership depends on all elements of our power – including strong and principled diplomacy.

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.

Politics is applesauce.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

A pair of powerful spectacles has sometimes sufficed to cure a person in love.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

Language is a weapon of politicians, but language is a weapon in much of human affairs.

The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.

Loyalty to the Nation all the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.

If people continue to feel like Democrats are looking after poor folks and Republicans are looking after rich folks and nobody is looking after me, then we don’t get a lot of stuff done. And the trend lines evidence the fact that folks have gotten squeezed. And obviously, 2007, 2008 really ripped open for people how vulnerable they were.

Putin sought to destabilize Ukraine’s economy.

No woman in my time will be prime minister or chancellor or foreign secretary – not the top jobs. Anyway, I wouldn’t want to be prime minister; you have to give yourself 100 percent.

It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.

Words are loaded pistols.

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

I think politicians really go with the tide.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected President but refuses because he doesn’t want to give up power.

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read ‚Democracy in America‘ by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

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.

I don’t think consensus-building politics is what I’m meant to be doing.

One thing I hope I’ll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

The artist part of me always wants to be appreciated. I read every review. But I never wanted to seek validation by awards or anything controlled by politics.

A whole people with the ballot in their hands possess the most conclusive and unlimited power ever entrusted to humanity.

As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, I know that the men and women of our intelligence community put their lives on the line every day, and they do very dangerous work to keep our country safe.

There is none made so great, but he may both need the help and service, and stand in fear of the power and unkindness, even of the meanest of mortals.

An election is a moral horror, as bad as a battle except for the blood; a mud bath for every soul concerned in it.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

I love being in the United States Senate.

I guess you’d call me an independent, since I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.

Well, I have great respect for Senator Hirono.

I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.

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.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‚Present‘ or ‚Not guilty.‘

You won’t have Nixon to kick around anymore, because, gentlemen, this is my last press conference.

Power does not change you, it unmasks you.

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer it.