When there is a lack of honor in government, the morals of the whole people are poisoned.

I think members of the legislature, people who have to run for office, know the connection between money and influence on what laws get passed.

Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.

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

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

If the government ever imposes a tax on books – and I wouldn’t put it past them – I’m in dead trouble.

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

I love that we can trust Barack to do what he says he’s going to do, even when it’s hard – especially when it’s hard.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.

Humanity I love you because when you’re hard up you pawn your intelligence to buy a drink.

Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.

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.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

Example is leadership.

If an individual wants to be a leader and isn’t controversial, that means he never stood for anything.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty… it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don’t do that, we really deserve the world we get.

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.

What do you think a stimulus is? It’s spending – that’s the whole point! Seriously.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.

Everybody has a little bit of Watergate in him.

As president, I’m committed to making Washington work better and rebuilding the trust of the people who sent us here.

What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?

There is probably a perverse pride in my administration… that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t be neglecting of marketing and P.R. and public opinion.

William Gladstone has not a single redeeming defect.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

When you look at a corporation, just like when you look at a slave owner, you want to distinguish between the institution and the individual. So slavery, for example, or other forms of tyranny, are inherently monstrous. The individuals participating in them may be the nicest guys you can imagine.

Morality is of the highest importance – but for us, not for God.

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.

Money is kind of a base subject. Like water, food, air and housing, it affects everything yet for some reason the world of academics thinks it’s a subject below their social standing.

The human race is governed by its imagination.

Government’s first duty and highest obligation is public safety.

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall.

He who has great power should use it lightly.

It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency – that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. There’s no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

Wherever there is a settled society, religion is necessary; the laws cover manifest crimes, and religion covers secret crimes.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

You want me to own a team and deal with these rich, spoiled stubborn athletes, and try to get them to perform? No thank you.

I don’t use Twitter for bad.

Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them.

Be thankful we’re not getting all the government we’re paying for.

We shall probably get nearest to the truth if we think of the conscious and personal psyche as resting upon the broad basis of an inherited and universal psychic disposition which is as such unconscious, and that our personal psyche bears the same relation to the collective psyche as the individual to society.

Advertising is a racket, like the movies and the brokerage business. You cannot be honest without admitting that its constructive contribution to humanity is exactly minus zero.

I think our democracy has it exactly right: two terms, eight years. It’s enough. Because it’s important to have one foot in reality when you have access to this kind of power.

Yeah, I wasn’t chosen to be first. I was just chosen to command that flight. Circumstance put me in that particular role. That wasn’t planned by anyone.

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

A director makes 100 decisions an hour. Students ask me how you know how to make the right decision, and I say to them, ‚If you don’t know how to make the right decision, you’re not a director.‘

You know, one of the things I think you understand as president is you’re held responsible for everything, but you don’t always have control of everything, right?

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

I think our politicians could learn a lot from Mandela.