There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

He who steals a little steals with the same wish as he who steals much, but with less power.

Should surveillance be usable for petty crimes like jaywalking or minor drug possession? Or is there a higher threshold for certain information? Those aren’t easy questions.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

If I’d written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people – including me – would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today. Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous commodity in the context of professional journalism.

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

Honor is simply the morality of superior men.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

I groan daily under a body of sin and corruption. Oh for the time when I shall drop this flesh, and be free from sin!

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

One of the great questions of philosophy is, do we innately have morality, or do we get it from celestial dictation? A study of the Ten Commandments is a very good way of getting into and resolving that issue.

Injustice is censured because the censures are afraid of suffering, and not from any fear which they have of doing injustice.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Justice in the life and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and souls of the citizens.

Of two evils, choose neither.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

I’m always pushing for human responsibility. Given that chimpanzees and many other animals are sentient and sapient, then we should treat them with respect.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

When anyone has the power to destroy the whole human race in a matter of hours, it becomes a moral issue. The church must speak out.

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.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

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.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

In my view, the only thing worse than a rock star is a rock star with a conscience.

Those who commit injustice bear the greatest burden.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

I think one of the great things about the United States has been our ability to maintain a distinction between our military and domestic law enforcement.

We all have the duty to do good.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false ‚intelligence‘ and selected ‚leaks.‘

Integrity has no need of rules.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

It is not living that matters, but living rightly.

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

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

Mankind is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

I think governments can’t do much.

Man’s true nature being lost, everything becomes his nature; as, his true good being lost, everything becomes his good.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

Putin sought to keep Ukraine weak through corruption.

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.