The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

In our age there is no such thing as ‚keeping out of politics.‘ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

Very rarely do I talk off the top of my head on stage. I’m not an improv guy. I’m a writer-guy who presents what he’s written.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can’t, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

Only two things are necessary to keep one’s wife happy. One is to let her think she is having her own way, and the other is to let her have it.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

But behavior in the human being is sometimes a defense, a way of concealing motives and thoughts, as language can be a way of hiding your thoughts and preventing communication.

When the players go home, I can’t tell them what to do, so you need to create an atmosphere of trust. I don’t want to think, ‚What are they doing now? Do I need to call them?‘

If your man is a sports enthusiast, you may have to resign yourself to his spouting off in a monotone on a prize fight, football game or pennant race.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

In politics stupidity is not a handicap.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

I don’t have faith in young people any more. I don’t waste time trying to communicate with them.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

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

Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.

I’ve always wanted male friends that I could be real intimate with and talk about important things with and be as affectionate with that person as I would be with a girl.

There is no act of treachery or meanness of which a political party is not capable; for in politics there is no honour.

Peace comes when you talk to the guy you most hate. And that’s where the courage of a leader comes, because when you sit down with your enemy, you as a leader must already have very considerable confidence from your own constituency.

If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner.

I’ve been known to preach.

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

The thing about hip-hop today is it’s smart, it’s insightful. The way they can communicate a complex message in a very short space is remarkable.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

I told y’all I didn’t vote, right? But if I would’ve voted, I would’ve voted for Trump.

I’m grateful for the opportunities God gave me to minister to people in high places; people in power have spiritual and personal needs like everyone else, and often they have no one to talk to.

I’ve spent too much time giving speeches, traveling the world.

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa’s leading organization – and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

The prospect of dating someone in her twenties becomes less appealing as you get older. At some point in your life, your tolerance level goes down and you realize that, with someone much younger, there’s nothing really to talk about.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this depression, that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.

We don’t get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

When Rumsfeld gets up on television and says we have definitive intelligence that al Qaeda is working with Iraq, how is an ordinary citizen supposed to react? They won’t tell you the evidence, and when anyone asks, they say, ‚Well, you know: It’s secret.‘

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.

I didn’t just invent saying offensive things.

There can be no doubt that the average man blames much more than he praises. His instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks up a row.

I just think you ought to talk straight with your people.

I love being in the United States Senate.

The first time you say something, it’s heard. The second time, it’s recognized, and the third time it’s learned.

There will be days when I walk in an arena and people will cheer and then there might be days when I walk in an arena and people might boo, but it all sounds the same to me because it’s all just noise that lets me know that I’m relevant.

If you can’t answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

I have been a firm believer in the federal structure of our country as enshrined in the Constitution.

It sure is hell to be president.

What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff.

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

People are always coming up to me and saying, ‚I heard your dad’s speech, and it’s really great.‘ And they’ll mention some place I didn’t even know my dad was going to.

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Actually, to be an effective person politically in this country, I think you have to be thirty or over, and also you have to be rich, well-placed, you have to be close to power. And I don’t think that young people, because they look young, can do much, as I think they are counterproductive.

If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.