Donald Trump

I thought being President would be easier than my old life.

As an entrepreneur, I choose my teachers carefully, very carefully. I am extremely cautious of the people with whom I spend my time and to whom I listen.

Dream big and kick ass.

I’ve always felt that a lot of modern art is a con, and that the most successful painters are often better salesmen and promoters than they are artists.

Philanthropic efforts are among the best rewards you can have for a life well lived.

{on Mexico] They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.

I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the [U.S.] media.

There is no justification for the belief that, so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary…it is not the source but the limitation of power which prevents it from being arbitrary.

A very, in a sense, terrifying aspect of our society, and other societies, is the equanimity and the detachment with which sane, reasonable, sensible people can observe [war]. I think that’s more terrifying than the occasional Hitler or LeMay or other that crops up. These people would not be able to operate were it not for this apathy and equanimity…and therefore I think that it’s, in some sense, the sane and reasonable and tolerant people who share a very serious burden of guilt that they very easily throw on the shoulders of others who seem more extreme and violent.

With the first link, a chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.

The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to lead.

The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision-making from the public arena to unaccountable institutions: kings and princes, priestly castes, military juntas, party dictatorships, or modern corporations.

There were gleeful reports in American military publications about the exciting spectacle of a huge flood of water wiping out the rice crops [in North Korea] on which “the Asian” depends for survival. They are very much worth reading, a useful part of historical memory.

These are just samples of the real lives of Trump supporters, who are led to believe that Trump will do something to remedy their plight, though the merest look at his fiscal and other proposals demonstrates the opposite — posing a task for activists who hope to fend off the worst and to advance desperately needed changes..

The dynamic of revolutionary events is directly determined by swift, intense, and passionate changes in the psychology of classes which have already formed themselves before the revolution.

I’m not a dictator who writes things to tell people what to do.

We don’t want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.

Everywhere the Europeans went, whether it was the Portuguese or the Spanish or the English or the Dutch, they fought with a level of violence which appalled the natives. They had never seen anything like it. That was true virtually over the entire world, with very few exceptions.

I mean, the Pentagon is in no sense a defense department. It has never defended the United States from anyone. It has only served to conduct aggression. And I think that the American people would be much better off without a Pentagon.

Since Jimmy Carter, religious fundamentalists play a major role in elections. He was the first president who made a point of exhibiting himself as a born again Christian. That sparked a little light in the minds of political campaign managers: Pretend to be a religious fanatic and you can pick up a third of the vote right away. Nobody asked whether Lyndon Johnson went to church every day. Bill Clinton is probably about as religious as I am, meaning zero, but his managers made a point of making sure that every Sunday morning he was in the Baptist church singing hymns.