Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy.

Each party steals so many articles of faith from the other, and the candidates spend so much time making each other’s speeches, that by the time election day is past there is nothing much to do save turn the sitting rascals out and let a new gang in.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would steal them away.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

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.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

How can a president not be an actor?

If you believe that tax policy has nothing to do with the economy, then you’re pretty much like a rock, only dumber.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.

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.

China has to go along with world trends. That’s democracy, liberty, individual freedom. China sooner or later has to go that way. It cannot go backward.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

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.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

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.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

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.

The doctrine that everything is fine as long as the population is quiet, that applies in the Middle East, applies in Central America, it applies in the United States.

A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.

How can we help President Obama?

To some degree it matters who’s in office, but it matters more how much pressure they’re under from the public.

Religion flourishes in greater purity, without than with the aid of Government.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples‘ money.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.

I’m glad I can’t vote.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

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

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.

I’ve used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I’ve still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

Any government that supports, protects or harbours terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

The art of government is the organisation of idolatry.

The day-to-day making of policy is arguing all the time. You’re trying to get the right approach and the right answer, and there are moments that aren’t very pleasant. But in the end, you look at the overall product.

In a democracy, allegations will never improve situations. So, I’m against allegations, but I always welcome criticism.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.

Some people will have to be afraid. Those who plunder the nation, deliver injustice, will have to feel scared of me. And I am not afraid of admitting this. Government cannot be so lenient that it forgives them.

Democracy is not static. It is a living force. Every new idea, every new invention offers opportunity for both good and evil.

Democracy as a system has evolved into something that Thomas Jefferson didn’t anticipate.

We can’t equate democracy with Christianity because the largest democracy on earth is India, which is primarily Hindu. The third largest democracy is Indonesia, which is Islamic. Democracy and freedom are not dependent on Christian beliefs.

Read my lips: no new taxes.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly arise and make them miserable.

A politician is a man who understands government. A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for 15 years.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.