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.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

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

Everything that is new or uncommon raises a pleasure in the imagination, because it fills the soul with an agreeable surprise, gratifies its curiosity, and gives it an idea of which it was not before possessed.

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

The time has come for us to draw the line. The time has come for the responsible leaders of both political parties to take a stand against overgrown Government and for the American taxpayer.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

The secret to humor is surprise.

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

I have been a firm believer in the federal structure of our country as enshrined in the Constitution.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

They consider me to have sharp and penetrating vision because I see them through the mesh of a sieve.

That our government should have been maintained in its original form from its establishment until now is not much to be wondered at. It had many props to support it through that period, which now are decayed and crumbled away. Through that period, it was felt by all to be an undecided experiment; now, it is understood to be a successful one.

I pay attention to politics and technology.

Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

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

I am quite serious when I say that I do not believe there are, on the whole earth besides, so many intensified bores as in these United States. No man can form an adequate idea of the real meaning of the word, without coming here.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

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

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.

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

Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.

The wild Indian power of escaping observation, even where there is little or no cover to hide in, was probably slowly acquired in hard hunting and fighting lessons while trying to approach game, take enemies by surprise, or get safely away when compelled to retreat.

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.

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.

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

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

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

Look at the means which a man employs, consider his motives, observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself!

I’m completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.

People tend to play in their comfort zone, so the best things are achieved in a state of surprise, actually.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

Obamacare sucks, it can’t be fixed.

The more you observe politics, the more you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.

How can a president not be an actor?

There is no object so large but that at a great distance from the eye it does not appear smaller than a smaller object near.

The root of all superstition is that men observe when a thing hits, but not when it misses.

See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise, you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

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

How to drive a guy crazy: send him a telegram and on the top put ‚page 2.‘

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.

The most successful detectives owe their success to noticing small signs. Scouts are natural detectives and never let the smallest detail escape them. These small things are called by Scouts ‚Sign.‘

Which government is the best? The one that teaches us to govern ourselves.

There are websites that any government wants to block. The truth about the Internet is that it’s extremely hard to block anything – extremely hard. You’ll never get perfect blocking.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

We are a forward-looking people, and we must have a forward-looking government.

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.

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.

Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.

I believe that a government has only one religion – India first. A government has only one holy book – our Constitution. A government has only one kind of devotion – towards nation.

No government can help the destinies of people who insist in putting sectional and class consciousness ahead of general weal.

President Assad, I worked with. I know him reasonably well, met with him a few times, and he’s a liar.

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