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.

I’m substantially concerned about the policy directions of the space agency. We have a situation in the U.S. where the White House and Congress are at odds over what the future direction should be. They’re sort of playing a game and NASA is the shuttlecock that they’re hitting back and forth.

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

If I studied all my life, I couldn’t think up half the number of funny things passed in one session of congress.

The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don’t have to waste your time voting.

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.

I don’t think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.

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

I’m the president of the United States. I’m not the emperor of the United States.

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

And I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.

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.

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

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.

Washington isn’t a city, it’s an abstraction.

We have the best government that money can buy.

The government argues that First Amendment rights are outweighed by the need to prosecute those who transmit classified information and documents.

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.

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

Other than being crazy enough to press a button, there is nothing that Putin can do militarily to fundamentally alter American interests.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.

Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks that business. If these are easy problems, business and government can come in and solve them.

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to another.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

The Iranian government is undoubtedly a severe danger to its own population, but not beyond that.

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.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

It is my view that we cannot conduct foreign policy at the extremes.

I sent American troops to Iraq to make its people free, not to make them American. Iraqis will write their own history and find their own way.

The economy’s always been the engine for our national security.

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

I don’t think that a Justice should have uppermost in her mind, ‚A Democratic president appointed me, so I must leave to be sure that another Democratic president can appoint my successor.‘

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

The White House is the finest prison in the world.

People do not make wars; governments do.

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm.

I think that America’s recovery of a global strategic view is an absolutely essential element of our foreign policy.

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 best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

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

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

The governments of the present day have to deal not merely with other governments, with emperors, kings and ministers, but also with the secret societies which have everywhere their unscrupulous agents, and can at the last moment upset all the governments‘ plans.

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

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

Al Qaeda is almost all in Pakistan, and Pakistan has nuclear weapons. And yet for every dollar we’re spending in Pakistan, we’re spending $30 in Afghanistan. Does that make strategic sense?

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

For success of any mission, it is necessary to have creative leadership. Creative leadership is vital for government, non-governmental organisations as well as for industries.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

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.

The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.

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

When governments rely increasingly on sophisticated public relations agencies, public debate disappears and is replaced by competing propaganda campaigns, with all the accompanying deceits. Advertising isn’t about truth or fairness or rationality, but about mobilising deeper and more primitive layers of the human mind.

The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

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

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 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.

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