The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end.

When I think over what I have said, I envy dumb people.

I think my message to the politicians who have within their power the ability to make change is, ‚Do you really, really not care about the future of your great-grandchildren? Because if we let the world continue to be destroyed the way we are now, what’s the world going to be like for your great-grandchildren?‘

I have never thought it necessary to patronize the American people.

Science is not everything, but science is very beautiful.

It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

Everything’s fine today, that is our illusion.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

Look, when you’re the president, there’s all kinds of things said about us. I mean, it’s just the nature of the job.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

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

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

Politics is not bean bags. It’s serious, tough stuff.

I had a much better view with the halo than I expected.

In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.

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.

Being ‚contented‘ ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.

I’m half living my life between reality and fantasy at all times. It’s best not to ask questions and just enjoy.

What is important in life is life, and not the result of life.

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

I have a reputation for taking on governors a lot more powerful than me.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

However my parents – both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing quirk that would never pay a mortgage or secure a pension.

If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

Watch what people are cynical about, and one can often discover what they lack.

It’s useful to go out of this world and see it from the perspective of another one.

Nothing is further than earth from heaven, and nothing is nearer than heaven to earth.

When you’re writing a novel, you don’t want the reader to come out of it voting yes or no to some question. Life is more complicated than that. Reality simply consists of different points of view.

We have the best government that money can buy.

So many people are looking at what’s wrong, and I try to encourage them to look at what’s right in their life. A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.

Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.

How inappropriate to call this planet Earth when it is quite clearly Ocean.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

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.

It is the fight alone that pleases us, not the victory.

There are many things that happen every day that we could murmur about if we let ourselves go there. But they really aren’t worth the effort it takes to get upset and gripe about it.

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.

People in Latin America… love America from afar and emulate America in some ways but also hate a lot of things that America does to them.

Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.

Things in our country run in spite of government, not by aid of it.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.

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