“When I’m not a politician, I’ll be dead.”

I say that when you elect a president you want a man to manage the legitimate business of your government. The government that is big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it away.

It is impossible to maintain freedom and order and justice without religious and moral sanctions.

Trade unions infringe upon the property rights of company owners.

Small men, seeking great wealth or power, have too often and too long turned even the highest levels of public service into mere personal opportunity.

I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle.

Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process.

The constitution is an instrument, above all, for LIMITING the functions of government.

We now have a president who tries to save money by turning off lights in the White House, even as he heads toward a staggering addition to the national debt. “L.B.J.” should stand for Light Bulb Johnson.

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.

History has to judge every man who served. I don’t know how they’re going to treat me. I may be the worst S.O.B. that ever came down the pike. But I won’t lose any sleep over it. I just like to be remembered as an honest person who tried.

The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an undifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.

If you don’t mind smelling like peanut butter for two or three days, peanut butter is darn good shaving cream.

My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them.

The big thing is to make this country – quit discriminating against people just because they’re gay. You don’t have to agree with it, but they have a constitutional right to be gay. They’re American citizens.

Perserverance. . .that’s been the story of my family.

Throughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument for thwarting man’s liberty.

The world is weary of statesmen whom democracy has degraded into politicians.

It only takes a politician believing in what he says for the others to stop believing him.

Getting high is a lot more real than listening to a politician. You can think that getting high actually did happen – that you danced, and got sweaty, and carried on. It really did happen.

You listen to a politician making a speech, and it is like hearing nothing. Whereas, music is unmistakably music.

I get no respect. The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.

The way my luck is running, if I was a politician I would be honest.

There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as ‘caring’ and ‘sensitive’ because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money.

Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don’t draft people; it’s not jury duty.