Try to always stay focused on the objectives that are possible and the positive - and on having fun outside of the stuff that's going on in Washington.

I'm not afraid of having an agenda. I do have an agenda. It's a positive agenda.

No matter what else is going on, Christmas is my all-time favorite period in the year. It has a positive effect on me like very little else does, seasonally, that is.

One of the biggest challenges we have, folks, is making liberty and freedom cool.

It's impossible for a Democrat to be a failure. It's impossible for a Democrat to be a reprobate. It's impossible for a Democrat to be a mess. It just isn't possible, as far as the mind-set of the media is concerned.

The battle for freedom and liberty really never is over, and there are really low points in it, but I'm not giving up, and I'm not gonna engage in phony pep talks, either.

The way the Democrats go about seeking equality is to lower people at the top.

We're throwing money down a rat hole drain of public education! We lead the world in public education spending. We lead the world in getting the least for it.

Liberals are some of the most arrogant, condescending smart alecks, but they're just pure ignorant, and they fit the bill of people who have no love and no respect for the founding of this country.

Young people have this almost romantic attachment to civil rights, liberties, emancipating people from oppression, etc. The idea that such oppression exists in this country offends me, but it's able to be pushed and sold because education in this country is so woefully incompetent and inept.

The attitude of the Democrat Party is that wherever there are Republicans they are so bad, they are so discriminatory, they are so racist, they're so bigoted, they're just such reprobates that we can't afford to let them have any say whatsoever in what's happening.

The message that President Obama delivered in his speech at Notre Dame was: morality is immoral. Pro-life is the extremist position, not a moral position. Yet we should compromise and work to reduce abortions. Where's the compromise between life and death - and why work to reduce the number of them occurring if there's nothing wrong with them?

Capitalism is always evaluated against dreams. Utopia is a dream. It doesn't exist.

Real prosperity comes from everybody in the country working together in a growth mode. Real prosperity comes as a result of people's own initiative and efforts and so forth. Prosperity, if it comes from the government, is not prosperity. It's an existence or a subsistence or whatever, but it isn't prosperity.

You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.

Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase.

If you're healthy, if you don't get sick much, if you don't go to the doctor much or use your health insurance much, you are a genetic lottery winner. It has nothing to do with the way you live, nothing to do with doing the right things. It's just sheer luck, and you are gonna pay for that.

Health care's like any other product or service: if the consumer is in charge of spending his money on it, then the market will make sure that it is affordable.

Self-reliance - that's a dirty word to Democrats. They want people to believe that self-reliance means you don't do anything with anybody. They don't want it thought of as accepting responsibility for one's life. Enterprise. Imagination. Independence. Entrepreneurism.

George W. Bush attended the intelligence briefing every day. Obama has not even attended half of them. He sends surrogates. That to me is significant.

Nobody in a leadership level in American politics is trying to inspire the American people. Everybody needs to be goosed. The vast majority of people are not self-starters.

Character matters; leadership descends from character.

There's a void of leadership in a lot of Washington. I think one of the reasons why there's so much angst across the country.

The Republican leadership thinks the best way to avoid losing elections is to let the Democrats win every controversial issue.

I know it when I don't know it. Sometimes I know it when I don't think I know it. I need to trust myself in these moments, these rare moments of self-doubt.

Will some reporter, or some Republican on the Sunday shows, please ask why tax cuts raid the non-existent Social Security Trust Fund but all the Democrats' new spending doesn't? Will someone please ask that?

There was a time when the United States government earned the trust of its people. There was a time when most people believed that the United States government was protecting them.

Enraging liberals is simply one of the more enjoyable side effects of my wisdom.

I reject most conventional wisdom.

Feminism is liberalism, and look at what it's doing, look at what it's promoting, look at what it's condoning. All the while, we have to live in this lie that there's some sort of Republican War on Women. We don't do this to women! We don't objectify women like this.

Police and firefighters are great, but they don't create wealth. They protect it. That's crucial. Teaching is a wonderful profession. Teachers help educate people to become good citizens so that citizens can then go create wealth. But they don't create the wealth themselves.

I wonder if liberal kids call liberal talk shows and ask how to get along in a conservative teacher's class? No. No. It doesn't happen, 'cause there's no thought of getting along.

The Democrats can engage in the most reprehensible, mean-spirited, vile, vicious verbal attacks known in politics, and they get praised for it.

Folks, the most insidious part of this whole health care scheme is that all of these vast medical expenditures will become nothing more than government budget items. We individuals will no longer exist. The relationship between a government and citizen will change forever.

I am convinced that, despite what you think of Obama, I don't think Obama has a person-to-person connection with people. I think people love him because of his race and feel sorry for him, object of sympathy. I think people feel he's a victim, he portrays himself as a victim of America; he gets sympathy that way.