Alexis de Tocqueville Quotes

What is the purpose of public service? It's to solve problems for the people you represent and certainly in the United States Senate, thinking about your state and thinking about your country as well.

Part of my job is to advocate on my constituents' behalf to federal agencies who aren't always responsive.

[Describing a congressman's role:] ... a sort of super lobbyist for his constituents.

It's our duty in Congress to bring the voices of our communities to Washington.

In the district I represent, I have to talk to everybody.

Every decision I make in Congress will be centered on the needs of the district.

We have a broken system, and we need politicians who are going to fix it. We need someone who's going to govern on behalf of everyone in this country, including immigrants. The fact of the matter is, the candidates need the Latino vote to win. If we feel we're not being represented and if we feel like the candidate is insulting us, ignoring us, and is not leading with fairness and empathy, I think that's going to be reflected in turnout.

America has been betrayed. We've been betrayed by the leadership that Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton have provided to this country over the last number of years. Think about just what's happened today.

I don't think things are getting more insane. I do know that the country is more divided than it's ever been. Tensions in America are at their peak.

I think America has always been polarized... It's a racist country and it has always been.

India is a democratic country & anyone can become a PM.

I think that having a black president in this country has been a seismic shift, in terms of what has been going on racially in America. I think that America is now engaging with how we have come to this point.

There are a lot of idiots in this country, and they deserve representation as much as the next man.

We can all do better. America is an entrepreneurial society. We had entrepreneurs who started our country. And they want us to think in fresh, new, different ways all of the time.

As a true patriot, I should be ashamed to think that Adam in paradise was more favorably situated on the whole than the backwoodsman in this country.

I support selecting as many candidates as early as possible for lots of reasons. First of all I think it is important that every voter - regardless of where they live in the country - should have the opportunity to vote Conservative should they wish.

I think the spirit of America, one American wanting to make another American's life better, or internationally our desire to see countries do better, or people in countries do better, coming from this concept of volunteerism is a very valid and important part of our internal being.

America is the greatest country on Earth. But because of some of the mistakes that have been made, we, I think, are going to have a lot of work to do in the next administration to restore that sense that America is that shining beacon on a hill.

In the last analysis, my fellow country men, as we in America would be the first to claim, a people are responsible for the acts of their government.

In terms of America, I think any profound consideration is bound to return us to the notion of twins because, though you certainly can contend there are many Americas, our history has been binary from the beginning, with its hairline fracture down the country's center between what American has wanted to be and what America has been. That fracture is slavery, of course. To some extent it's still slavery, in that collectively we refuse to come to grips with the American fact of slavery.

Representative democracy frequently manifests a disconnect between parliamentarians and the people, so that parliamentarians have agendas that do not correspond with the wishes of the electorate. This has led in many countries to apathy, cynicism and large-scale absenteeism in elections. What is needed is not only parliaments, but parliamentarians who genuinely represent the wishes of the electorate.

The people in our country and in America and in all West European countries, they have to gorge and guzzle so that they don't even start to think about the fact that we have something to do with Vietnam or what it might be about, OK?

It doesn't actually make any difference whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make the people think that they have had something to do with the electing of presidents for 200 years when they've had absolutely nothing to say about the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings.... What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.

My own take on it is that government will never adequately represent every person in the country. It can't. It's not possible. It's a multicultural, multifaceted society in which we live. The country, I think, thrives because it's willing to embrace many ideas at the same time, but once a decision is made you will be unpopular with many people. The business of our political leaders is to go ahead and make a decision and let the chips fall where they may. That's a very hard thing to do.