Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

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

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

The best thing is to always keep honest people around, because when you have a bunch of yes men around that know that you’re making a mistake but let you go on with it, that’s when it ruins your mind state as an artist.

Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.

One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.

Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

The amount of trust and bandwidth that you build up working with someone for five, seven, 10 years? It’s just awesome. I care about openness and connectedness in a global sense.

I know the Federal Reserve Bank can continue to print more and more money… but city and state governments cannot.

Anger is wonderful. It keeps you going. I’m angry about bankers. About the government.

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.

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.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe.

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

Extremely religious, legalistic people have a criticism or judgment about everyone and everything. They just have a way of bringing people down with what they say.

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

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.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

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.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

You’ve got to vote, vote, vote, vote. That’s it; that’s the way we move forward. That’s how we make progress for ourselves and for our country.

Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

It is a virtual reflex for governments to plead security concerns when they undertake any controversial action, often as a pretext for something else.

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

Women fight for democracy and engage in the world. But they shouldn’t try and be copying men and be masculine; they should anchor on the home and build on those fundamentals.

I say, don’t try to fight your own battles because God will do it.

As a tactic, violence is absurd. No one can compete with the Government in violence, and the resort to violence, which will surely fail, will simply frighten and alienate some who can be reached, and will further encourage the ideologists and administrators of forceful repression.

Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.

You know we’re going to control the insurance companies.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Empire and liberty.

Trust is central to an economy that works.

I think what motivates people is not great hate, but great love for other people.

I believe God’s keeping the records, and I believe you will be rewarded even in this life. Somehow, some way, God will make it up to you. It may be He protected you from an accident you never knew. You can’t give God something without God giving you more in return, whether it’s peace or joy or satisfaction.

Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn’t. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway.

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

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.

Policy makers who have never served in the military continue to use the military to lead social change in this country.

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.

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

My choices, including those related to the day-to-day aspects of life, like the use of a modest car, are related to a spiritual discernment that responds to a need that arises from looking at things, at people and from reading the signs of the times. Discernment in the Lord guides me in my way of governing.

Our greatness has always come from people who expect nothing and take nothing for granted – folks who work hard for what they have, then reach back and help others after them.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‚Present‘ or ‚Not guilty.‘

Personally, I’d like to see more of our leaders take a technocratic approach to solving our biggest problems.

It’s not a faith in technology. It’s faith in people.

To understand the true quality of people, you must look into their minds, and examine their pursuits and aversions.

I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.

In a country with millions of people and cars going everywhere, the enemy is going to get a car bomb out there once in awhile.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.

We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

How can we help President Obama?

The oppression of any people for opinion’s sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.