There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.

I have no desire to crow over anybody or to see anybody eating crow, figuratively or otherwise. We should all get together and make a country in which everybody can eat turkey whenever he pleases.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

My government is working for the common man. Our priority is the poor of the country. We want good governance through a dynamic and seamless government.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

Empire and liberty.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies – or else? The chain reaction of evil – hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars – must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

I like policy. It’s why I decided to enter government. The other thing I like about government – you have good days, you have bad days, but you never have a boring day, and that’s important to me.

I don’t think the government should be in the trailer-park business. I don’t think they know how to run a trailer park.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

I do not believe we will have a war with Iran.

Quite frankly, Russian aggression in Ukraine and its illegal occupation of Crimea remind us that we still have a good deal more work to do to guarantee the strategic vision of a Europe whole, free and at peace.

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.

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

I’m going to be a vice president very much like George Bush was. He proved to be a very effective vice president, perhaps the most effective we’ve had in a couple of hundred years.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

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.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

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.

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

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce, or a tragedy, or perhaps both.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

We have practiced diplomacy since the very beginning of the nation. Sometimes it has not worked, and we’ve had to go to war. I always believe you should try to find peace and reconciliation before conflict. That has been the approach I’ve taken.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

There is nothing your highest self wants more than peace. This peace makes you feel worthy of all of the richest blessings of the universe, and when you radiate this out into the world, it is returned to you without fail.

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

One of the roles of the Presidency is to lead a political party. Having a President in office is usually a huge advantage to a party because it gives the party a mouthpiece and an advocate at the highest level.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

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

What were once only hopes for the future have now come to pass; it is almost exactly 13 years since the overwhelming majority of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland voted in favour of the agreement signed on Good Friday 1998, paving the way for Northern Ireland to become the exciting and inspirational place that it is today.

The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war.

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.

Democracy passes into despotism.

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

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

We will stand up for our friends in the world. And one of the most important friends is the State of Israel. My administration will be steadfast in support Israel against terrorism and violence, and in seeking the peace for which all Israelis pray.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair, there is no hope.

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

My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.