Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well.

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.

There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information – the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.

I don’t follow politics much.

Trouble brews when we steal from the poor and give to the rich.

Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

If there is no God, everything is permitted.

Justice means minding one’s own business and not meddling with other men’s concerns.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

Principles are guidelines for human conduct that are proven to have enduring, permanent value.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.

You cannot mix sports with politics.

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.

Of two evils, choose neither.

All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in the three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

Not only our future economic soundness but the very soundness of our democratic institutions depends on the determination of our government to give employment to idle men.

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.

One who is injured ought not to return the injury, for on no account can it be right to do an injustice; and it is not right to return an injury, or to do evil to any man, however much we have suffered from him.

Live one day at a time emphasizing ethics rather than rules.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

Ken Lay, the disgraced former chairman of Enron, found a way to escape his legal problems: He died after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy charges.

No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition.

The humanists‘ replacement for religion: work really hard and somehow you’ll either save yourself or you’ll be immortal. Of course, that’s a total joke, and our progress is nothing. There may be progress in technology but there’s no ethical progress whatsoever.

I am sometimes a fox and sometimes a lion. The whole secret of government lies in knowing when to be the one or the other.

The precepts of the law are these: to live honestly, to injure no one, and to give everyone else his due.

How can a president not be an actor?

States are not moral agents.

Government does not create wealth. The major role for the government is to create an environment where people take risks to expand the job rate in the United States.

Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime. Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.

Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.

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

Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?

It’s actually very easy for democracy to disappear.

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

I always invest my own money in the companies that I create. I don’t believe in the whole thing of just using other people’s money. I don’t think that’s right. I’m not going to ask other people to invest in something if I’m not prepared to do so myself.

It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Most members of Congress are politicians. They’re bores.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

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.

We tell lies, yet it is easy to show that lying is immoral.

The word ‚good‘ has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

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

You can’t get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

How shall I lose the sin, yet keep the sense, and love the offender, yet detest the offence?

If co-operation is a duty, I hold that non-co-operation also under certain conditions is equally a duty.

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.

Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces.

I think that both parties should declare the debt limit as a political weapon of mass destruction which can’t be used. I mean, it is silly to have a country that has 237 years building up its reputation and then have people threaten to tear it down because they’re not getting some other matter.

Politics have no relation to morals.

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

Only a man’s character is the real criterion of worth.

Where there is a free government, and the people make their own laws by their representatives, I see no injustice in their obliging one another to take their own paper money.

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