John Kerry Quotes

There are people working their butts off trying to save our republic and save democracy from the likes of powerful people in the Democrat Party who want to take this country and turn it into a personal little playground for their own private gain.

Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy.

We know that second terms have historically been marred by hubris and by scandal.

Why is there so much resistance among people who work in the Government to the seemingly obvious fact that, in our democracy, if the Government lies, it will eventually get caught

I find the Democratic party overall, on a macro level, to be institutionally corrupt.

I believe a democracy needs men and women of conviction in its positions of leadership in order for us to succeed. That's the subject of 'A Perfect Candidate,' a film I made 20 years ago about Oliver North and Charles Robb.

Corruption is uniquely reprehensible in a democracy because it violates the system's first principle, which we all learned back in the sunshiny days of elementary school: that the government exist to serve the public, not particular companies or individuals or even elected officials.

We've seen a lot of dirty politics in Ireland. We know from the French, their wonderfully neurotic presidents, that our hands are sort of tied. The Italians - I don't know where it stops. No nation can claim "We are an uncorrupt nation, therefore we will tell you what the morals of democracy are." Because it's going on everywhere.

Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.

Dishonesty in government is the business of every citizen. It is not enough to do your own job. There's no particular virtue in that. Democracy isn't a gift. It's a responsibility.

A politician's goal is always to manipulate public debate. I think there are some politicians with higher goals. But all of them get corrupted by power.

This is a matter of public health. The public was sick and tired of DeLay and his corruption.

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and I found that out when I was Attorney General in Massachusetts.

I think the American government is now the most corrupt government in the world.

You know they say the most dangerous person of the world is a member of the United States Congress just home from a three-day fact-finding trip.

My primary motivation for running for the 9th Congressional District is that I strongly believe that one of the hallmarks of the American democracy is a representative form of democracy.

I truly believe that all power corrupts. Such is probably the thinking behind every political film ever made in Hollywood.

I think that Obama's failure to reestablish the rule of law in money matters is the most damaging thing that he's done - and perhaps the most damaging thing that has happened in American politics in my lifetime. Because once the rule of law is absent in money matters, then anything really goes in politics.

I'm in politics. I'm in government, so nothing surprises me.

Surveillance changes history. We know this through examples of corrupt presidents like Nixon.

There is a tendency in all parties, when they have been for a long time in possession of power, to augment it.

I'm not going to reduce the choices of Canadians at the ballot box by backroom deals or secret arrangements. I think that's a cause for cynicism more than anything else.

I think the record shows that as Speaker, I have taken the lead in cleaning up politics.

Government by blackmail is incompatible with democracy.

I am a relatively new Member to this Chamber, and it is troublesome to me and I can tell Members it is getting very troublesome to my constituents when they hear this repeated consistent drum beat of a corruption of the democratic process.