"Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others." --Groucho Marx

"There is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust." --James Madison
"Whether you're running for office, holding a public trust or simply voting -- politics are all about conscience. Being guided by it, protecting it and understanding it." --columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez
"Is there any system of governance or economics that can withstand rampant corruption or self-entitlement? ... Has the astounding success of American capitalism spawned people who consider themselves completely removed from the ethical guidelines that govern mere mortals? Has the wholesale abandonment of religion for secularism produced a moral vacuum? ... No system can survive when its prime movers and shakers are fundamentally corrupt -- most especially when they don't consider themselves to be so." --columnist Arnold Ahlert
"So, do the rest of you now have some idea of the depth of corruption in Chicago and Illinois, and why some of us were so concerned about electing a president who emerges from this cesspool? ... Brazen, appalling, unbelievable, they say. But for those of us who have spent a lifetime covering the news here, it's how it works." --Chicago columnist Dennis Byrne
"Reality check: The chances of House Democrats opening an ethics investigation into either [the junior Jesse] Jackson's or [Rahm] Emanuel's involvement [in the "Blago" scandal] is exactly zero. Ethics. Democrats. Say that three times fast." --columnist Rich Galen
"The automakers' contention that they pay workers $73 an hour takes into account the cost of pensions and health insurance for retirees. Still, no one disputes that Detroit's unionized active workers cost a good $10 an hour more than the nonunionized work forces that build Toyotas, Hondas and BMW's in the largely nonunionized South." --columnist William Murchison
"[Illinois Gov. Rod] Blagojevich allegedly assumed someone would be willing to pay dearly to be a U.S. senator. I'm sure he was right. But if government were less important in our lives, politicians would have fewer goodies to trade. In return, we'd have more money and more freedom. That's one more reason to limit government power." --ABC News' "20/20" anchor John Stossel
"It looks as if we are going to have to relive all of the mistakes of the 20th century one more time -- let's hope it is one last time -- before we relearn the big lesson of that century: the moral and material superiority of capitalism and the disastrous consequences of socialism in all its forms." --columnist Robert Tracinski

"We shall return to proven ways -- not because they are old, but because they are true." --Barry Goldwater
"Never assume the obvious is true." --William Safire

"A charismatic Democratic President takes office promising to extend health insurance to all Americans. His party enjoys majorities in Congress, and the GOP is at sea. The press corps finds policy a bore and instead files stories that draw facile analogies to the heyday of FDR... Any taxpayer commitment this large ought to require a social consensus reflected in large majorities, but Democrats are determined to plow ahead anyway. They know that a health-care entitlement for the middle class will never be removed once it is in place; and that government will then dominate American health-care choices for decades to come. That's all the more reason for the recumbent GOP to get its act together." --The Wall Street Journal