The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

We need to understand that we as citizens and as a government in any community throughout this country have no more important obligation than to educate those who are going to replace us.

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf.

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

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

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

I tend to believe that audiences are relatively well-balanced people.

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

The atomic bomb certainly is the most powerful of all weapons, but it is conclusively powerful and effective only in the hands of the nation which controls the sky.

The only bipartisanship you ever see is when they finally sign a bill and everybody says, ‚Gee, isn’t that wonderful?‘

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

The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Liberty doesn’t work as well in practice as it does in speeches.

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

The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to an uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

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.

Our position is that we do not accept conditions of any kind which may affect the independence and sovereignty of our country just with the view to solve economic problems existing between the United States and Cuba.

Most members of Congress are politicians. They’re bores.

As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort to violence, which will surely fail, will simply frighten and alienate some who can be reached, and will further encourage the ideologists and administrators of forceful repression.

I have been very happy in the House of Representatives.

Even though the risks of death are higher driving than flying, many people would rather drive simply because they feel they have more control driving. The facts are that only a few hundred people die a year flying, and 44,000 are killed a year driving.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is to live under the government of worse men.

Ninety-nine percent of the men and women of the FBI… are just professionals. I don’t want Americans, if an FBI agent knocks on their door, to have to be worried about well, is he a Democrat or a Republican? He’s an FBI agent.

Money does not change people, people change.

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.

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

Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken.

Our future cannot depend on the government alone. The ultimate solutions lie in the attitudes and the actions of the American people.

Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

When the external factors over which one has no control in a way start to become negative, it starts to affect our creative juices.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

Government isn’t that good at rapid advancement of technology. It tends to be better at funding basic research. To have things take off, you’ve got to have commercial companies do it.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

A Christian who does not pray for those who govern is not a good Christian.

It’s not the tools that you have faith in – tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I’m still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

There has to be something in every role that interests you.

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.