You think the world was shocked when Nixon resigned? Wait till I whup George Foreman’s behind.

I’d done a lot of research in Hollywood and in academia. I love research and so I wanted to kind of ground the book in history, in things that I read that were universal and timeless and then kind of let my own experiences sort of filter through all of this history.

By curious accident of history and geography, the world’s major energy resources are located pretty much in Shiite regions. They’re a minority in the Middle East, but they happen to be where the oil is, right around the northern part of the Gulf.

I never got into training to be an All-Ireland boxing champ or to win a belt. At the start, I just got into it to learn how to defend myself when I got into situations.

When General Allenby conquered Jerusalem during World War I, he was hailed in the American press as Richard the Lion-Hearted, who had at last won the Crusades and driven the pagans out of the Holy Land.

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

The President’s post should not be politicised. Once a president is elected, he is above politics.

Democracy is worth dying for, because it’s the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.

Mind you, the Elizabethans had so many words for the female genitals that it is quite hard to speak a sentence of modern English without inadvertently mentioning at least three of them.

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who’s been successful at another college program, they’re going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

Europe became rich because it exploited Africa; and the Africans know that.

My wife told me if there is any rumors about me, it better be about politics and not about my social life.

In a time of domestic crisis, men of goodwill and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics.

Political chaos is connected with the decay of language… one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end.

I had just as much support from Republicans as I did Democrats when I ran for president. But I should have organized the Democratic Party to get me re-elected.

I played by the rules of politics as I found them.

Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.

There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction.

When we are sick, we want an uncommon doctor; when we have a construction job to do, we want an uncommon engineer, and when we are at war, we want an uncommon general. It is only when we get into politics that we are satisfied with the common man.

By most accounts, Aristide is the most popular figure in Haiti.

When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

I don’t like to see a president who is just out campaigning all year long or for the last four years. I’d like to see somebody who’s going in the office. In fact, I’d like to not see them because that way you’d be sure that they’d be working.

The fact is that we would have had comprehensive health care now, had it not been for Ted Kennedy’s deliberately blocking the legislation that I proposed in 1978 or ’79.

You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope.

I may be drunk, Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

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.

How fortunate I was to be alive and a lawyer when, for the first time in United States history, it became possible to urge, successfully, before legislatures and courts, the equal-citizenship stature of women and men as a fundamental constitutional principle.

I am a Christian and a Democrat, that’s all.

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

The United States never lost a war or won a conference.

Man is not a machine that can be remodelled for quite other purposes as occasion demands, in the hope that it will go on functioning as regularly as before but in a quite different way. He carries his whole history with him; in his very structure is written the history of mankind.

Senator Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue.

Let me just be very clear that the Republican Party will select a nominee that will beat Bill Clinton.

By 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.

The government of Israel doesn’t like the kinds of things I say, which puts them into the same category as every other government in the world.

There’s no doubt that usually a president’s public image is enhanced by going to war. That never did appeal to me.

I long for the time when all human history is taught as one history, because it really is.

Everything isn’t political.

I have been so great in boxing they had to create an image like Rocky, a white image on the screen, to counteract my image in the ring. America has to have its white images, no matter where it gets them. Jesus, Wonder Woman, Tarzan and Rocky.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.

Barack Obama is probably the most exciting candidate that either the Democratic or Republican party has produced at least since I’ve been around. He’s fresh, he’s new, he’s insightful.

No man should be in politics unless he would honestly rather not be there.

The truth of the matter is that Iran is a cancer.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

I have learned, in my life and work as a sportswriter, that big-time Sports and big-time Politics are not so far apart in America. They are both a means to the same end, which is victory… And why not? Victory is good for you, and don’t let anybody tell you different.

History is more or less bunk.

Democratic societies are unfit for the publication of such thunderous revelations as I am in the habit of making.

As capitalism falters, the rich move their money out of the country, violence increases, and politicians promising prosperity are elected.

The secret to success is to offend the greatest number of people.

I believe in a president whose religious views are his own private affair, neither imposed by him upon the nation or imposed by the nation upon him as a condition to holding that office.

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.

There’s a tremendous gap between public opinion and public policy.

The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.

Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.