An individual’s refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.

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

No public man can be just a little crooked.

As we know, while our species remains alive, everybody has the sacred duty to be optimistic. Ethically, any other behaviour wouldn’t be admissible.

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what’s right.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

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

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

In my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course, and I may say in advance, there will be no blood shed unless it be forced upon the government. The government will not use force unless force is used against 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.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

Sometimes we look at gay being a bigger sin than being proud or not telling the truth. I don’t think God categorizes sins.

War should only be declared by the authority of the people, whose toils and treasures are to support its burdens, instead of the government which is to reap its fruits.

By what principle of original right is it that one-fiftieth or one-ninetieth of a great nation, by calling themselves a State, have the right to break up and ruin that nation as a matter of original principle?

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.

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that’s my religion.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

I found that the corridors of power in Delhi were littered with lobbies of various kinds.

What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that’s just not what the founders intended.

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

No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.

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

The military can buy our diplomats some time.

There is no principle worth the name if it is not wholly good.

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God’s will.

The rulers of the state are the only persons who ought to have the privilege of lying, either at home or abroad; they may be allowed to lie for the good of the state.

People must have righteous principals in the first, and then they will not fail to perform virtuous actions.

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

The first step in the evolution of ethics is a sense of solidarity with other human beings.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.

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

Where do the evils like corruption arise from? It comes from the never-ending greed. The fight for corruption-free ethical society will have to be fought against this greed and replace it with ‚what can I give‘ spirit.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.

The role of the intellectual cannot be to excuse the violence of one side and condemn that of the other.

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

Non-violence, which is the quality of the heart, cannot come by an appeal to the brain.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

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.

I can’t really criticize the Tea Party people, because I came into the White House pretty much on the same basis that they have become popular. That is dissatisfaction with the way things are going in Washington and disillusionment and disencouragement about the government.

I feel good because I believe I have made progress in rebuilding the people’s trust in their government.

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

Organized murder is war, and though we demonstrate against a particular war, the nuclear, or any other kind of war, we have never demonstrated against war.

No obligation to do the impossible is binding.

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.

I do think there should be some regulations on AI.

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

Great ambition is the passion of a great character. Those endowed with it may perform very good or very bad acts. All depends on the principles which direct them.

The best thing about my protest has been to see how more and more people have been coming and getting involved.

The dropping of bombs on people – isn’t that terrorism?

He has committed the crime who profits by it.

The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.

To assert in any case that a man must be absolutely cut off from society because he is absolutely evil amounts to saying that society is absolutely good, and no-one in his right mind will believe this today.

There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.

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

Doing well is the result of doing good. That’s what capitalism is all about.

Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.