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.

I think my message to the politicians who have within their power the ability to make change is, ‚Do you really, really not care about the future of your great-grandchildren? Because if we let the world continue to be destroyed the way we are now, what’s the world going to be like for your great-grandchildren?‘

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

Our single most important challenge is therefore to help establish a social order in which the freedom of the individual will truly mean the freedom of the individual.

In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.

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

A lot of people have a sense-of-entitlement mentality that somebody else ought to do these things for them. People are mad at the government for not getting jobs for them. I don’t understand why it’s the government’s responsibility.

It’s not proper for the government to intrude too thoroughly into the domain of the family. It’s inappropriate.

The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.

Whenever a fellow tells me he’s bipartisan, I know he’s going to vote against me.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

Remember, it is not about voting for the perfect candidate – there is no such thing. Presidents are human.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Finality is not the language of politics.

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.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

Winning the election is a good-news, bad-news kind of thing. Okay, now you’re the mayor. The bad news is, now you’re the mayor.

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

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

I reject the cynical view that politics is a dirty business.

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.

Corruption is a cancer: a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments. It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.

Despotism can only exist in darkness, and there are too many lights now in the political firmament to permit it to remain anywhere, as it has heretofore done, almost everywhere.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

There’s no political point worth my son’s life.

I think I was identified as a failed president because I wasn’t re-elected.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

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.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

We have observed that, in society and the world in which we live, selfishness has increased more than love for others, and that men of good will must work, each with his own strengths and expertise, to ensure that love for others increases until it is equal and possibly exceeds love for oneself.

Obama has succeeded in descending even below George W. Bush in approval in the Arab world. It’s minuscule, few percent.

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

All the political angst and moral melodrama about getting ‚the rich‘ to pay ‚their fair share‘ is part of a big charade. This is not about economics, it is about politics.

Putin sought to destabilize Ukraine’s economy.

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.

Running for office is similar to being a trial lawyer in a very long trial. It requires adrenaline and stamina; it requires being in shape mentally and emotionally. It’s a marathon.

I am an anarchist in politics and an impressionist in art as well as a symbolist in literature. Not that I understand what these terms mean, but I take them to be all merely synonyms of pessimist.

We will not be intimidated or pushed off the world stage by people who do not like what we stand for, and that is, freedom, democracy and the fight against disease, poverty and terrorism.

When a nation is over-reliant on one or two commodities like oil or precious minerals, corrupt government ministers and their dodgy associates hoard profits and taxes instead of properly allocating them to schools and hospitals.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

Commodities such as gold and silver have a world market that transcends national borders, politics, religions, and race. A person may not like someone else’s religion, but he’ll accept his gold.

The presidency has many problems, but boredom is the least of them.

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.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

We’re a diverse society, and I think the TV is doing a great job in showing that we’re all human beings, that we can all get along, that we can all be together, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

It is a way to take people’s wealth from them without having to openly raise taxes. Inflation is the most universal tax of all.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

I hope that no American will waste his franchise and throw away his vote by voting either for me or against me solely on account of my religious affiliation. It is not relevant.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

There are seasons in every country when noise and impudence pass current for worth; and in popular commotions especially, the clamors of interested and factious men are often mistaken for patriotism.

No one has done a study on this, as far as I can tell, but I think Facebook might be the first place where a large number of people have come out. We didn’t create that – society was generally ready for that. I think this is just part of the general trend that we talked about, about society being more open, and I think that’s good.