The government, whether state or central, is elected. That means we have a responsibility to elect the right kind of leaders.

I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will.

I consider anybody a twerp who hasn’t read ‚Democracy in America‘ by Alexis de Tocqueville. There can never be a better book than that one on the strengths and vulnerabilities inherent in our form of government.

I am confident that when the facts and policies have been examined, when the record of performances have been reviewed, Barack Obama and Joe Biden will once again be elected to lead our beloved country to a better future.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

Failure is nature’s plan to prepare you for great responsibilities.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

The blame is his who chooses: God is blameless.

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.

The function of posterity is to look after itself.

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

India is a democracy; it is in our DNA.

One word sums up probably the responsibility of any vice-president, and that one word is ‚to be prepared‘.

Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what’s going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

Every sin is the result of a collaboration.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable – even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.

Politicians love regulating. That’s part of the whole power structure.

Duty cannot exist without faith.

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

It sure is hell to be president.

I am such a political person.

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 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.

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

There’s no such thing as going to a soapbox and saying, ‚The government’s corrupt,‘ and not having the intelligence service see your face. In the digital world, that can be done.

Your success, or lack of success, is your responsibility. Even when you have a chain of command that you don’t like as well, its your responsibility to work with the up chain of command.

What charitable 1 percenters can’t do is assume responsibility – America’s national responsibilities: the care of its sick and its poor, the education of its young, the repair of its failing infrastructure, the repayment of its staggering war debts.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.

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.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don’t think anybody has held this job who hasn’t felt personally responsible for those being killed.

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

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.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

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

I don’t follow politics much.

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

Good governance with good intentions is the hallmark of our government. Implementation with integrity is our core passion.

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

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are – that is the fact.

It’s not that every single thing that happens on Facebook is gonna be good. This is humanity. People use tools for good and bad, but I think that we have a clear responsibility to make sure that the good is amplified and to do everything we can to mitigate the bad.

Ultimately this issue is on us. We’re the ones who make the decisions about what our kids eat.

Do the duty which lies nearest to you, the second duty will then become clearer.

You cannot be in a position of power and destroy the life of another person.

My parents were of the generation who thought they were the children of a free Czechoslovakia, the only democracy in central Europe.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term ‚reform‘ is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

Concentration of executive power, unless it’s very temporary and for specific circumstances, let’s say fighting world war two, it’s an assault on democracy.

In a democracy, the well-being, individuality and happiness of every citizen is important for the overall prosperity, peace and happiness of the nation.