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Democracy is still a radical idea in a world where we often confuse images with realities, words with actions.

In the event of fire in any of the public buildings troops would be of vast service in the protection of public property, and should insurrection break out the protection of life and property would be more safe guarded by our company of regulars, than by the whole City.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

I think America would do anything through a drive-through.

I don't think Iraq could be transformed overnight into a democracy. How can you take a country that doesn't have any kind of tradition of democracy, where its people have been brutalized and repressed for decades, and suddenly impose Jeffersonian ideals?

Unfortunately, the true force which propels our endless political disputes, our constant struggles for political advantage, is often not our burning concern for democracy, it is often of our dedication to the principle of the rule of law.

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

I think it's obvious that democracy is something that is contagious, and it always has been.