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.

We’ve become, now, an oligarchy instead of a democracy. I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards to the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.

There’s no such thing as going to a soapbox and saying, ‚The government’s corrupt,‘ and not having the intelligence service see your face. In the digital world, that can be done.

Gray Davis can run a dirty campaign better than anyone, but he can’t run a state.

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.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.

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

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words ‚Ich bin ein Berliner!‘

No body can be healthful without exercise, neither natural body nor politic, and certainly, to a kingdom or estate, a just and honourable war is the true exercise.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

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.

Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay.

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.

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

Our modern society – especially in the West, and especially now – reveres youth.

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.

Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn’t.

People love conspiracy theories.

One of the powerful temptations is that of the cinema palace. The cinema has undoubtedly an enormous attraction for boys, and people are constantly cudgelling their brains how to stop it. But it is one of those things which would be very difficult to stop even if it were altogether desirable.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

I’m going to be so much better a president for having been at the CIA that you’re not going to believe it.

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

As in geology, so in social institutions, we may discover the causes of all past changes in the present invariable order of society.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

I would remind you the lesser of two socialists is still a socialist.

We live in a bewildering world.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.

The right honourable gentleman caught the Whigs bathing, and walked away with their clothes. He has left them in the full enjoyment of their liberal positions, and he is himself a strict conservative of their garments.

Trump has no sense of shame.

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out… without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.

Nixon was no more a saint than he was a great president.

Censorship ends in logical completeness when nobody is allowed to read any books except the books that nobody reads.

In a democracy, the well-being, individuality and happiness of every citizen is important for the overall prosperity, peace and happiness of the nation.

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

The mainstream is always under attack.

Politicians must set their aims for the high ground and according to our various leanings, Democratic, Republican, Independent, we will follow. Politicians must be told if they continue to sink into the mud of obscenity, they will proceed alone.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy.

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.

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

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.

I always say the strength of democracy lies in criticism. If there is no criticism, that means there is no democracy. And if you want to grow, you must invite criticism. And I want to grow; I want to invite criticism.

I’m not a politician. And I don’t want to be.