Political Leaders

"What Iraq has done is treacherous and disloyal toward not only Iran, but the entire Muslim world, simply by subjecting themselves to the temptations of colonizers."

"Who are the enemies of Islam? All the bullying oil customers. Oil for them is an existential matter. If they do not have oil, their homes will freeze and their air and ground transportation will stop. This is the only reason the enemy tries to create conflict among Muslims, for they know this reality. The globally hegemonic powers know and see that if this enormous Muslim world comes together in unity and creates a superpower—economically, politically, and militarily—none of the existing military powers could stand against such a force."

"We have no intentions of domination or becoming a superpower in the common and ordinary sense. Our fundamental goal is that the oppressed in the world are able to find the power to decide their own faith. The oppressed people should not be indifferent about this. Instead, we seek amicable relations. When we say peaceful relations, we do not mean relations with every nation. Exceptions include the racist South Africa and the Zionist regime of Israel. They are illegitimate regimes. The nature of these two regimes and their existence is illegal. The other exception is the United States."

"Western democracy is based on liberalism. Freedom exists but has no limits, even if it is against the rights and freedoms of the rest of their society. … The West desires one thing from liberalism, and that is its own absolute freedom to do whatever it desires within the global community and to occupy any part of the world."

"The Islamic Republic still has a long way to go to achieve the social justice mandated by Islam. We still have not reached that stage and have a long way to go to get there."

"The arrogant powers intend to turn our nation into a third-world country and return it to its pre-revolutionary state."

"All the papers in Europe and America belong to the capitalists. The newspapers enjoy freedom, but it is the freedom of capitalists to push through their agenda. … If someone does not belong to this circle of capitalists, their views and opinions will not be published or made known. No one will hear them. … They claim newspapers are free in America and Britain. I ask, which newspaper belongs to the middle or lower classes of the society so that they could freely express their views, and we could witness such freedoms?"

"Jeff Sessions, then-Attorney General of the United States, told prosecutors in May of 2018 to go after the children. "We need to take away children," Sessions said, according to notes of a meeting obtained by The New York Times, "If [you] care about kids, don't bring them in. Won't give amnesty to people with kids." The policy provoked a colossal public backlash, doing immense damage to the perception of the federal deportation machine, a bipartisan edifice erected by immigration hawks from both parties. (p 152 "Not the Right Way")"

"we are all concerned about mass incarceration in the country today. If you want to know how we got there, right now what we’re doing, with people like Jeff Sessions and that guy in the White House, is how we got there. And they’re trying to ensure that we go back there, in part because it’s going to affect primarily, negatively affect, black people and brown people in this country. When I say “racist,” I mean when people who support policies and their behaviors are in such a way that one group disproportionately is unjustly treated. And that’s what we have going on right now. So when we have Jeff Sessions saying this sort of thing, the consequences will be racial discrimination. And he’s supporting that kind of policy or that action. That makes him a racist."

"Everybody knows that the war on drugs, as has been fought since the 1980s, has had a disproportionate negative impact on specific community: black communities, Latino communities. Everyone knows that. So, what Jeff Sessions is doing is engaged in—or he’s advocating being engaged in racial discrimination. So let’s call Jeff Sessions what he is. Jeff Sessions is a racist, if he takes on this action. It’s clear. We know it. So let’s stop playing around with it. Jeff Sessions is allowing us or is using drug policy to separate the people who we like from the people who we don’t like. And it provides a way to go after those people we don’t like, usually poor minority folks, without explicitly saying we don’t like those people. And that’s how drug law—that’s how drug law or drug policy has been enforced in this country. And so, if we allow Sessions to turn back the hands of time, then shame on all of us. The blood is on all of our hands, because we know the consequences of his proposed actions...before 2012, we were arresting people for marijuana in Colorado, in Washington and those other states. We’re no longer doing that. Now we’re saying it’s OK. It was always OK. It’s just that our laws were not in line. Now we’re doing—now we’re arresting people for things like cocaine, heroin and those sorts of things, sending people to jail for extended periods of time. Now, this is not to say that we should legalize drugs. That’s not the argument here. We certainly should not be sending people to jail for those extended periods that Jeff Sessions is advocating for. And he’s doing so because he’s going after people who we don’t care for in the United States."

"Senator Sessions has not demonstrated a commitment to a central requirement of the job -- to aggressively pursue the congressional mandate of civil rights, equal rights, and justice for all. In fact, at numerous times in his career, he has demonstrated a hostility toward these convictions, and has worked to frustrate attempts to advance these ideals."

"We don't pay judges to think; we pay judges to rule on the law."

"I love that program (asset forfeiture). We had so much fun doing that, taking drug dealers' money and passing it out to people trying to put drug dealers in jail. What's wrong with that?"

"This country does not discriminate. No president, no officer in this country should hold office that has any hint of treating people differently because of the color of their skin or where they came from and that kind of thing. We believe in equality and fair treatment and that's the moral principle that we adhere to as a nation."

"The civil libertarians among us would rather defend the Constitution than protect our nation’s security."

"The corn that I planted, the fields that I cleared, The flocks that I raised, and the cabin I reared; The wife of my bosom — Farewell to ye all! In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall."

"Sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. I never tried my hand at that sort of writing but on this particular occasion such was my state of feeling, that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took pen in hand, and as usual I went ahead."

"I also told them of the manner in which I had been knocked down and dragged out, and that I didn't consider it a fair fight any how they could fix it. I put the ingredients in the cup pretty strong I tell you, and I concluded my speech by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and they might all go to hell, and I would go to Texas."

"I have never knew what it was to sacrifice my own judgment to gratify any party and I have no doubt of the time being close at hand when I will be rewarded for letting my tongue speak what my heart thinks. I have suffered myself to be politically sacrificed to save my country from ruin and disgrace and if I am never again elected I will have the gratification to know that I have done my duty."

"It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all his motions, and windings, and turnings, even at the expense of my consciences and judgment. Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles. … His famous, or rather I should say infamous Indian bill was brought forward and, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said it was a favorite measure of the President, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this, I wouldn't go for him, or any other man in the whole creation."

"I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on law, learning to guide me; for I had never read a page in a law book in all my life."

"I don't know of any thing in my book to be criticized on by honorable men. Is it on my spelling? — that's not my trade. Is it on my grammar ? — I hadn't time to learn it, and make no pretensions to it. Is it on the order and arrangement of my book ? — I never wrote one before, and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book? — this I claim, and I hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily i hate all people now dont bother me run over by a friend or so, and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. And as for grammar, it's pretty much a thing of nothing at last, after all the fuss that's made about it. In some places, I wouldn't suffer either the spelling, or grammar, or any thing else to be touch'd; and therefore it will be found in my own way. But if any body complains that I have had it looked over, I can only say to him, her, or them — as the case may he — that while critics were learning grammar, and learning to spell, I, and "Doctor Jackson, L.L.D." were fighting in the wars; and if our hooks, and messages, and proclamations, and cabinet writings, and so forth, and so on, should need a little looking over, and a little correcting of the spelling and the grammar to make them fit for use, its just nobody's business. Big men have more important matters to attend to than crossing their ts—, and dotting their is—, and such like small things."

"I know, that obscure as I am, my name is making a considerable deal of fuss in the world. I can't tell why it is, nor in what it is to end. Go where I will, everybody seems anxious to get a peep at me … There must therefore be something in me, or about me, that attracts attention, which is even mysterious to myself."

"Most of authors seek fame, but I seek for justice — a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess."

"I leave this rule for others when I'm dead Be always sure you're right — THEN GO AHEAD!"

"Although our great man at the head of the nation, has changed his course, I will not change mine. … I was also a supporter of this administration after it came into power, and until the Chief Magistrate changed the principles which he professed before his election. When he quitted those principles, I quit him. I am yet a Jackson man in principles, but not in name... I shall insist upon it that I am still a Jackson man, but General Jackson is not; he has become a Van Buren man."

"The party in power, like Jonah's gourd, grew up quickly, and will quickly fall."

"Heaven knows that I have done all that a mortal could do, to save the people, and the failure was not my fault, but the fault of others."

"Thare is no chance of hurrying bussiness here like in the legeslature of a State thare is such a desposition here to Show Eloquence that this will be a long Session and do no good..."

"Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."

"We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money."

"We must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living."

"I know not whether, in the eyes of the world, a brilliant death is not preferred to an obscure life of rectitude. Most men are remembered as they died, and not as they lived. We gaze with admiration upon the glories of the setting sun, yet scarcely bestow a passing glance upon its noonday splendor."

"I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country. The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man."

"Pop, pop, pop! Bom, bom, bom! throughout the day. No time for memorandums now. Go ahead! Liberty and Independence forever."

"I am rejoiced at my fate. I had rather be in my present situation than to be elected to a seat in congress for life. I am in great hopes of making a fortune for myself and family. I hope you will do the best you can and I will do the same. Do not be uneasy about me for I am with my friends."

"I must say as to what I have seen of Texas, it is the garden spot of the world. The best land & best prospects for health I ever saw is here, and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here. There is a world of country to settle."

"I am sorry to say I do doubt the honesty of many men that are called good at home, that have given themselves up to serve a party. I am no man's man. I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, and fetch and carry, at the whistle of the great man in the white house, no matter who he is. And if this petty, un-patriotic scuffling for men, and forgetting principles, goes on, it will be the overthrow of this one happy nation, and the blood and toil of our ancestors will have been expended in vain."

"I am now here in Congress... I am at liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictates to be right, without the yoke of any party on me, or the driver at my heels, with his whip in hand, commanding me to ge-wo-haw, just at his pleasure. Look at my arms, you will find no party hand-cuff on them!"

"I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless[ly] and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized."

"I would rather be right than be President."

"It is totally unnecessary for the gentleman to remind me of my coming from a slaveholding state. I know whence I came, and I know my duty, and I am ready to submit to any responsibility which belongs to me as a senator from a slaveholding state. I have heard something said on this and a former occasion about allegiance to the South. I know no South, no North, no East, no West, to which I owe any allegiance. I owe allegiance to two sovereignty, and only two: one is the sovereignty of this Union, and the other is the sovereignty of the state of Kentucky. My allegiance is to this Union and to my state; but if gentlemen suppose they can exact from me an acknowledgement of allegiance to any ideal or future contemplated confederacy of the South, I here declare that I owe no allegiance to it; nor will I, for one, come under any such allegiance if I can avoid it."

"The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity—unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity."

"My friends are not worth the powder and shot it would take to kill them!... If there were two Henry Clays, one of them would make the other President of the United States!... It is a diabolical intrigue, I know now, which has betrayed me. I am the most unfortunate man in the history of parties: always run by my friends when sure to be defeated, and now betrayed for a nomination when I, or any one, would be sure of an election."

"In the little affairs of human life, whether social or national, I have found that courtesies, kindness, and small attentions are often received with more grateful feelings than those of a more substantial character. We often appreciate more the picayunes than the double eagles, in the currency of social and human life."

"We have had good and bad Presidents, and it is a consoling reflection that the American Nation possesses such elements of prosperity that the bad Presidents cannot destroy it, and have been able to do no more than slightly to retard the public's advancement."

"Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character."

"Precedents deliberately established by wise men are entitled to great weight. They are evidence of truth, but only evidence...But a solitary precedent...which has never been reexamined, cannot be conclusive."

"The arts of power and its minions are the same in all countries and in all ages. It marks its victim; denounces it; and excites the public odium and the public hatred, to conceal its own abuses and encroachments."

"Government is a trust, and the officers of the government are trustees; and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people."