We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a national blessing.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

Illinois surpasses every other spot of equal extent upon the face of the globe in fertility of soil and in the proportionable amount of the same which is sufficiently level for actual cultivation.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.

Romania, which had the worst dictator in Eastern Europe, Ceausescu, he was a darling of the West. The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.

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

I don’t write policy for my government.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

I am often asked if, when I was secretary, I had problems with foreign men. That is not who I had problems with, because I arrived in a very large plane that said United States of America. I had more problems with the men in our own government.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Real liberty is neither found in despotism or the extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments.

In general, I think, U.S. policies remain constant, going back to the Second World War. But the capacity to implement them is declining.

There are many people who feel that it is useless and futile to continue talking about peace and non-violence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.

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.

Every time there has been an effort by the Haitian people to overcome the misery and poverty that comes from 200 years of bitter attacks, really bitter, the U.S. steps in and blocks it.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

The effort to try to present the Social Security program as if it’s a major problem, that’s just a hidden way of trying to undermine and destroy it.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

But just as they did in Philadelphia when they were writing the constitution, sooner or later, you’ve got to compromise. You’ve got to start making the compromises that arrive at a consensus and move the country forward.

Every man, every woman who has to take up the service of government, must ask themselves two questions: ‚Do I love my people in order to serve them better? Am I humble and do I listen to everybody, to diverse opinions in order to choose the best path?‘ If you don’t ask those questions, your governance will not be good.

The biggest problem that we have is that California is being run now by special interests. All of the politicians are not anymore making the moves for the people, but for special interests and we have to stop that.

I have quite a decent constitution in spite of all my abuse of it and my advanced years. I’m still quite robust.

My government is working for the common man. Our priority is the poor of the country. We want good governance through a dynamic and seamless government.

From my intimate discussions with President Obama, it is evident that India figures significantly in American geo-political, economic and strategic thinking. India is the largest democracy in the world.

All modern revolutions have ended in a reinforcement of the power of the State.

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?

I grew up in San Francisco. And so I’m informed in a certain kind of way about, you know, believing in democracy and believing in America. And I’m a very ardent patriot.

I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.

I do not believe that government should be in the business of telling women what they should do with their bodies.

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.

If there was one decision I would overrule, it would be ‚Citizens United.‘ I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

I had nearly finished school because I was making effort not that bad on that. But there was a law in Germany after the war. You could not make your final examination before 18, so lots of people who were late because of the way had to do it first.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

Politics have no relation to morals.

The United States Constitution has proved itself the most marvelously elastic compilation of rules of government ever written.

Iraq is a long way from the U.S., but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face.

I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

India is a democracy; it is in our DNA.

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.

If you make any money, the government shoves you in the creek once a year with it in your pockets, and all that don’t get wet you can keep.

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.

Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.

In my opinion eight years as president is enough and sometimes too much for any man to serve in that capacity.

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of the United States.

My parents were of the generation who thought they were the children of a free Czechoslovakia, the only democracy in central Europe.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and the home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

Well, I thought the deal was, when you went to work for the government you weren’t supposed to make money!

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.

Leadership is absolutely vital if there are comparable countries which can affect the security of the world you live in. Between Lincoln and Roosevelt’s time, America was protected by huge oceans and, in practice, by the British navy. Today, it’s different, and the obsession of the Obama administration has been for retrenchment.

The CIA is made up of boys whose families sent them to Princeton but wouldn’t let them into the family brokerage business.

Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be, as the egg is to the fowl; we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.