“If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.”

A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets tough.

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they’re sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive.

We must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.

A people free to choose will always choose peace.

Trust, but verify.

The federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.

Freedom is the right to question and change the established way of doing things.

Surround yourself with great people; delegate authority; get out of the way.

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

Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

I didn’t leave the Democratic party, the Democratic Party left me.

We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

The ignorant mind, with its infinite afflictions, passions, and evils, is rooted in the three poisons. Greed, anger, and delusion.

We’re all mad, the whole damned race. We’re wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we’re all mad and in solitary confinement.

I was suffering from my chronic delusion that one good share is safer than ten bad ones, and I am always forgetting that hardly anyone else shares this particular delusion.

Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

Criticism and dissent are the indispensable antidote to major delusions.

It doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously, but no one is under the delusion (that we’re) bringing world peace.

Celebrity gives us delusion of self importance.

The need for love hallucinates a prince or princess. The oasis complex is never a complete delusion: the man in the desert does see something on the horizon. It is just that the palms have withered, the well is dry, and the place is infected with locusts.