Mahatma Gandhi Quotes

The citizens of New Hampshire expect and deserve a government as clean as our mountain streams and as open as our blue skies. Today let us pledge together to make this government - the people's government - clean, open and honest.

In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.

There are laws against threats and intimidation; and harsh criticism, short of unlawful action, is a price our people have traditionally been willing to pay for self-governance. Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which ... campaigns anonymously … and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.

The best citizens were supposed to desire honest men in office, men who would not take bribes, men who would appoint high-minded men as their subordinates, men who would look after the public interest, see that public charities were well supported.

If the civil society is not transparent, honest, and accountable, then you cannot be a champion of social justice.

We can not overestimate the fervent love of liberty, the intelligent courage, and the sum of common sense with which our fathers made the great experiment of self-government.

There are actually very few US politicians who have integrity and vision.

As a citizen of this country, I've got to be honest to the people of South Africa.

Democracy is not simply a question of structures. It is a state of mind. It is an activity. And part of that activity is honesty.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

This idea that you can't be an honest man and a Washington politician is a myth, a crock made up by sellouts and careerist hacks who don't stand for anything and are impatient with people who do. It's possible to do this job with honor and dignity.

To tell the truth is revolutionary.

Every man who says frankly and fully what he thinks is doing a public service.

It does not matter what party you are a member of in this great Nation of ours. Accountability and competence are characteristics that Americans value throughout our great land.

We must plan for freedom, and not only for security, if for no other reason than that only freedom can make security secure.

This is a nation that has lost the ability to be self-critical, and that makes a lie out of the freedoms.

Telling the truth, and confronting the challenge, is what politics is about.

I feel the weight of just telling the truth. There really is no weight to telling the truth. It's a little scary sometimes, but if you tell the truth, you don't have to be looking over your shoulder.

I've always tried to keep my integrity and keep my autonomy.

I think there are three main values which are fundamental: that Georgia will never be a criminal country, that Georgia will never return to corruption, and that Georgia will be independent.

The elemental human desire for self-government knows no geographical or racial boundaries.

Truth is the greatest of all national possessions. A state, a people, a system which suppresses the truth or fears to publish it, deserves to collapse.

Democracy needs leaders, not masters.

Plutocracy [government by the wealthy] lacks all the essential characters of a true democracy: a clean tradition, culture, public spirit, honesty, honor, courage—above all, courage.

We as citizens should hold our government accountable for word and deed.