When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

There’s a lot of fuss on the Left about election irregularities, like, you know, the voting machines were tampered with, they didn’t count the votes right, and so on. That’s all accurate and of some importance, but of far more importance is the fact that elections just don’t take place, not in any meaningful sense of the term ‚election.‘

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa’s leading organization – and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.

I just think that – when a country needs more income and we do, we’re only taking in 15 percent of GDP, I mean, that – that – when a country needs more income, they should get it from the people that have it.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

Constitutions should consist only of general provisions; the reason is that they must necessarily be permanent, and that they cannot calculate for the possible change of things.

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.

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

We must have government that builds stamina into communities and men. That makes men instead of mendicants.

In politics… never retreat, never retract… never admit a mistake.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

I don’t think generally politician come from democratic country. I think not that thinking. But sometimes little bit short-sighted. They are mainly looking for their next vote.

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.

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.

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.

I seldom think of politics more than eighteen hours a day.

The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.

Since I’m the president and Democrats have controlled the House and the Senate, it’s understandable that people are saying, you know, ‚What have you done?‘

It’s easy being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you.

The state of the economy is not the issue when it comes to growing a business. The relevant questions are always: ‚What business are you in? Furthermore, is it adapting to the times?‘

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

The President’s post should not be politicised. Once a president is elected, he is above politics.

The thought of being President frightens me and I do not think I want the job.

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.

We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.

Politics is just like show business. You have a hell of an opening, coast for a while, and then have a hell of a close.

Democracy means government by the uneducated, while aristocracy means government by the badly educated.

People forget… that we structured it so that the government, or the people, would be repaid with a really good rate of return. And as it turns out, that aspect of TARP, that’s what happened.

America is just downright mean.

I’ve rarely kept my distance from kind of – I don’t know if we can call it politics, but kind of, civic engagement and that kind of thing, except I tended to think, ‚Well, do it yourself before you start telling other people what they should be doing.‘

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

In order to deal with all the medical cost demands and other challenges in the U.S., as we look to raise that revenue, the rich will have to pay slightly more. That’s quite clear.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

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

Everything is political. I will never be a politician or even think political. Me just deal with life and nature. That is the greatest thing to me.

A President cannot always be popular.

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

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.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

In our age there is no such thing as ‚keeping out of politics.‘ All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia.

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

There’s some jerks. There’s some big egos. There are a few that think they’re one of the Founding Fathers… in both parties.

I do have a political agenda. It’s to have as few regulations as possible.

The Soviet government is the most realistic regime in the world – no ideals.

The IRS! They’re like the Mafia, they can take anything they want!

The government has completed the entire process to do away with interviews for lower rank jobs. There will be no requirement of interview for Group D,C and B non-gazetted posts in central government.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.

Some say we should not engage in activism. Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?

King Louis Philippe once said to me that he attributed the great success of the British nation in political life to their talking politics after dinner.

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.

If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.

My brother Bob doesn’t want to be in government – he promised Dad he’d go straight.