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

You can hold yourself back from the sufferings of the world, that is something you are free to do and it accords with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

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.

Rebellion is what you make of it. When you’ve been on a tour bus for two months straight, and then you get in your car and drive wherever you want, that can feel rebellious.

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.

Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I’ve met with, and I’ve met them all: It’s never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.

Freedom is never dear at any price. It is the breath of life. What would a man not pay for living?

In the case of Yugoslavia v. NATO, one of the charges was genocide. The U.S. appealed to the court, saying that, by law, the United States is immune to the charge of genocide, self-immunized, and the court accepted that, so the case proceeded against the other NATO powers, but not against the United States.

I am the freest author in the world.

Freedom is absolutely necessary for the progress in science and the liberal arts.

What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.

Self-government can succeed only through an instructed electorate.

The United States is afraid of China; it is not a military threat to anyone and is the least aggressive of all the major military powers.

The United States has to move very fast to even stand still.

The U.S. is just in a class by itself in military expenses. It basically matches the rest of the world, and it’s far more advanced.

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

Why should Iran have a deterrent strategy? Well, it’s surrounded by hostile enemies. Both of its borders have been under occupation by a hostile superpower, the United States, which is constantly violating the U.N. charter by leaving open what they call the saying, ‚all options are open‘ – meaning the threat of war.

Human beings may well be unable to break free of the dictatorship of greed that spreads like a miasma over the world, but no longer will we be an inarticulate and ignorant humanity, confused by our enslavement to superior cruelty and weaponry.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

I’m glad I can’t vote.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

I think that slavery is wrong, morally, socially and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union.

For the record, our democracy is revered around the world. And free elections are the best way on Earth to choose our leaders. This is how we elected John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; two George Bushes; Bill Clinton; and Barack Obama. It has worked for decades.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

We’ve persevered because of a belief we share with the Iraqi people – a belief that out of the ashes of war, a new beginning could be born in this cradle of civilization. Through this remarkable chapter in the history of the United States and Iraq, we have met our responsibility. Now, it’s time to turn the page.

I believe the Republicans have never thought that democracy was anything but a tribal myth.

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

The very design of neoliberal principles is a direct attack on democracy.

Many people, especially in the U.S., see countries like Sweden or Norway or Finland as role models – we have such a clean energy sector, and so on. That may be true, but we are not role models.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

For me, it’s about becoming a mogul, owning my own projects, and establishing myself as a funding producer. That’s what’s big to me. The movies and all that stuff are great, but the fact that I’m in a position to do what I want to do, however I want to do it and when I want to do it is bigger.

I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.

The tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.

The New Deal repudiation of democracy has left the Republican Party alone the guardian of the Ark of the Covenant with its charter of freedom.

I don’t know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

I’m a free spirit.

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

If anyone is crazy enough to want to kill a president of the United States, he can do it. All he must be prepared to do is give his life for the president’s.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

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.

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.

Young people these days don’t trust anything at all. They want to be free.

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.

We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties.

To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.

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

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

You probably don’t need more weapons than what’s required to destroy every city on earth. There’s only 2,300 cities. So, the United States, by that criteria, only needs 2,300 nuclear weapons – well, we’ve got more than 25,000!

The U.S. and its allies will do anything they can to prevent authentic democracy in the Arab world.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

A number of analysts have observed that although bin Laden was finally killed, he won some major successes in his war against the U.S.

The great thing about the United States and the historically magnetic effect it has had on a lot of people like me is its generosity, to put it simply.

As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility to act.