“My strong preference has always been to legislate when I can get legislation done.”

“Operation Iraqi Freedom is over, and the Iraqi people now have lead responsibility for the security of their country”

“Let's remember that our leadership is defined not just by our defence against threats, but by the enormous opportunities to do good and promote understanding.”

“When people are oppressed, and human rights are denied - particularly along sectarian lines or ethnic lines - when dissent is silenced, it feeds violent extremism, it creates an environment that is ripe for terrorists to exploit. When peaceful, democratic change is impossible, it feeds into the terrorist propaganda that violence is the only answer available.”

“I look at some of the kids that I interact with, and they were born with so many disadvantages. And you could start off in your first interaction with them saying, "Unless they get a lot of compensatory help, they're not going to be able to compete; they're just so far behind, and they're wounded and they're hurt."”

“If you want to know when a war might be coming, you just watch the U.S. and see when it starts cutting down on its defenses. It's the surest barometer in the world.”

“It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence; yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.”

“Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred. They can only be annihilated - preemptively and unilaterally, if necessary.”

“Our country is great because it is built on principles of self-reliance, opportunity, innovation, and compassion for others.”

“The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores.”

“Our federal tax system is, in short, utterly impossible, utterly unjust and completely counterproductive . . . [It] reeks with injustice, and is fundamentally un-American”

“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our own virtues.”

“Wisely weigh our sorrow with our comfort.”

“They are sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing.”

“To do a great right do a little wrong.”

“Time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let Time try.”

“Do not cast away an honest man for a villain's accusation.”

“If I shall be condemned Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else But what your jealousies awake, I tell you 'Tis rigor and not law.”

“Though justice be thy plea consider this, that in the course of justice none of us should see salvation.”

“When law can do no right,Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.”

“A man is usually more careful of his money than he is of his principles.”

“Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party”

“Our inheritance of well-founded, slowly conceived codes of honor, morals and manners, the passionate convictions which so many hundreds of millions share together of the principles of freedom and justice, are far more precious to us than anything which scientific discoveries could bestow.”

“Even the Soviet Union, with its huge nuclear arsenal, was a threat that could be deterred by the prospect of retaliation. But suicide bombers cannot be deterred. They can only be annihilated - preemptively and unilaterally, if necessary.”

“In this era of non-judgmental mush, too many Americans have become incapable of facing the brutal reality of unprovoked hatred, based on envy, resentment and ultimately on a vicious urge to lash out against others for the pain of ones own insignificance. That has been a common thread in things as disparate as ghetto riots, two world wars, and now Islamic terrorism.”

“In the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists, who have committed acts of war against the United States, in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes.”