This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.

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

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.

Nobody wants to put the creditworthiness of the United States in jeopardy. Nobody wants to see the United States default. So we’ve got to seize this moment, and we have to seize it soon.

But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no.

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

Money does not change people, people change.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

‚Star Wars‘ is fun, its exciting, its inspirational, and people respond to that. It’s what they want.

It’s not the tools that you have faith in – tools are just tools. They work, or they don’t work. It’s people you have faith in or not. Yeah, sure, I’m still optimistic I mean, I get pessimistic sometimes but not for long.

I am surprised and embarrassed to be a part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it.

If you get to a point where the existing institutions will not bend to the popular will, you have to eliminate the institutions.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

Most nations, as well as people are impossible only in their youth; they become incorrigible as they grow older.

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

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

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

It is my responsibility that I must make demonstrative efforts to reach out to every citizen of the country.

Every family should have the right to spend their money, after tax, as they wish, and not as the government dictates. Let us extend choice, extend the will to choose and the chance to choose.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

The purpose is clear. It is safety with solvency. The country is entitled to both.

I believe this government cannot endure permanently, half slave and half free.

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

Happy the country that lives on nothing but its wits; cursed be the one that thinks it can get rich by planting or digging or drilling for wealth.

The pacifist is as surely a traitor to his country and to humanity as is the most brutal wrongdoer.

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

In the 21st century, the countries that thrive will be the ones where citizens know their voices will be heard because the institutions are transparent.

If the people cannot trust their government to do the job for which it exists – to protect them and to promote their common welfare – all else is lost.

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

It was a privilege to pray with Governor Romney – for his family and our country.

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

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

Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.

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

There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.

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

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

I am for people. I can’t help it.

I like people and I like them to like me, but I wear my heart where God put it, on the inside.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

I’m substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They’re sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they’re hitting back and forth.

This nuclear option is ultimately an example of the arrogance of power.

We pay attention to every demographic in every country, so we’re going to focus on building things that teens are going to like, and we’re also going to focus on building things that other folks are going to like.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

What Washington needs is adult supervision.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery.

If I’m the people’s poet, then I ought to be in people’s hands – and, I hope, in their heart.