Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression...

I don't believe in anti-anything. A man has to have a program; you have to be for something, otherwise you will never get anywhere.

Now, as a nation, we don't promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That's an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

Life is indeed precious and I believe the death penalty helps to affirm that fact.

If I have to beat you up to keep you safe, that's just what I'll do. It's this kind of regard for others that makes me believe I'd be a good politician.

Leadership should be more participative than directive, more enabling than performing.