The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

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

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other’s speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

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

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

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The totalitarian, to me, is the enemy – the one that’s absolute, the one that wants control over the inside of your head, not just your actions and your taxes.

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’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

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

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

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.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

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

Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

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

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

When you decide to get involved in a military operation in a place like Syria, you’ve got to be prepared, as we learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, to become the government, and I’m not sure any country, either the United States or I don’t hear of anyone else, who’s willing to take on that responsibility.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistracies in a state.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.

A President needs political understanding to run the government, but he may be elected without it.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

Washington isn’t a city, it’s an abstraction.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

Many financial advisors recommend that you diversify for your own protection. What they fail to tell you is that it is also for their protection. Since most financial advisors cannot tell you exactly which stock or mutual fund is a great investment, they tell you to buy a bunch of them.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

We believe that according the name ‚investors‘ to institutions that trade actively is like calling someone who repeatedly engages in one-night stands a ‚romantic.‘

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

To be a bodyguard is to be a kamikaze pilot. Dedicated.

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

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.

We must do everything in our power to cease the behaviour that makes children everywhere feel afraid.

They are resilient children, but they are children, and as much as they need help to understand the hard truths in life, they also need what we all need – protection and love.

One time, this guy was bothering my mother, and me and my brothers had a stern talking with the guy and a little bit of physicality with him. So he disappeared. But I’m not a magician.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.

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.

If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions.

It is curious how instinctively one protects the image of oneself from idolatry or any other handling that could make it ridiculous, or too unlike the original to be believed any longer.