There’s no doubt that usually a president’s public image is enhanced by going to war. That never did appeal to me.

I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating… because it causes war, hypocrisy and competition.

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Liberals are not always so liberal with people who disapprove – disapprove of their point of view.

I will not run for president. No, nope, not going to do it.

If you have embraced a creed which appears to be free from the ordinary dirtiness of politics – a creed from which you yourself cannot expect to draw any material advantage – surely that proves that you are in the right?

The American claim that the bombing of North Vietnam was directed against military targets does not withstand direct investigation.

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.

If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.

I had just as much support from Republicans as I did Democrats when I ran for president. But I should have organized the Democratic Party to get me re-elected.

When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

It was the Congress that imposed ‚Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,‘ it was certainly my position, my recommendation to get us out of an even worse outcome that could have occurred.

Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence. In other words, it is war minus the shooting.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

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

The other day the President said, I know you’ve had some rough times, and I want to do something that will show the nation what faith that I have in you, in your maturity and sense of responsibility. He paused, then said, would you like a puppy?

I pay attention to politics and technology.

Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first.

I haven’t been very active in politics.

A master performer like Bill Clinton never lost sight of the fact that as president he had to project confidence and power, but if he was speaking to a group of autoworkers he would adjust his accent and his words to fit the audience, and do the same for a group of executives.

You can’t just have slogans, you can’t just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it’s going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.

I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly. Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. If you’re sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me – so am I.

My father belongs to the generation that fought the war in the 1940s. When I was a kid my father told me stories – not so many, but it meant a lot to me. I wanted to know what happened then, to my father’s generation. It’s a kind of inheritance, the memory of it.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Political necessities sometime turn out to be political mistakes.

I think a lot of people, including me, clammed up when a civilian asked about battle, about war. It was fashionable. One of the most impressive ways to tell your war story is to refuse to tell it, you know. Civilians would then have to imagine all kinds of deeds of derring-do.

I have known war as few men now living know it. It’s very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes.

I think Hillary Clinton is a phenomenal woman, and I’ve gotten to know her, and I think she’s made some pretty major contributions over the course of her life.

The invasion of Iraq, particularly, gave a big shot in the arm to the jihadi extremists.

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

Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

The American people are entitled to see the president and to hear his views directly, and not to see him only through the press.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the undecideds could go one way or another.

It is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it… anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Diplomacy: the art of restraining power.

How can a president not be an actor?

The President is always abused. If he isn’t, he isn’t doing anything.

The only defensible war is a war of defense.

There is always inequality in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded and some men never leave the country. Life is unfair.

We have the best government that money can buy.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

I have learned, in my life and work as a sportswriter, that big-time Sports and big-time Politics are not so far apart in America. They are both a means to the same end, which is victory… And why not? Victory is good for you, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

I was a little worried that young people would think the only game was being political and manipulative when really the bigger game is being so good at what you do that nobody can argue with your results.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society.

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

In remembering the appalling suffering of war on both sides, we recognise how precious is the peace we have built in Europe since 1945.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

Here, sir, the people govern; here they act by their immediate representatives.

I am not part of the problem. I am a Republican.

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

My job is not to represent Washington to you, but to represent you to Washington.

You notice how liberals keep saying, ‚If only Islam would have a Reformation‘ – it can’t have one. It says it can’t. It’s extremely dangerous in that way.

I remember the last three days that I was president, I never went to bed at all. I never went to bed until we had negotiated the final release of the hostages.

The most successful war seldom pays for its losses.

I guess you’d call me an independent, since I’ve never identified myself with one party or another in politics. I always decide my vote by taking as careful a look as I can at the actual candidates and issues themselves, no matter what the party label.