“Nobody in a leadership level in American politics is trying to inspire the American people. Everybody needs to be goosed. The vast majority of people are not self-starters.”

“If God were good, why would he create Rush Limbaugh?”

“The battle for freedom and liberty really never is over, and there are really low points in it, but I'm not giving up, and I'm not gonna engage in phony pep talks, either.”

“The Founding Fathers are not just some people that happened to get mad a long time ago and want their freedom. They were special people in addition to what their natural yearnings were.”

“Freedom without virtue isn't freedom - it will eventually destroy a society.”

“When you talk about change, you know what makes it really tough for people is on the one hand you've got tradition, and on the other hand you've got change; in many people's mind, change equals modernization. Tradition, however. I'm a big tradition guy.”

“Liberals want the government to get bigger, and they want you to drive smaller cars, and they want to dictate the way you live.”

“I reject most conventional wisdom.”

“Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn't allow or disallow. The president can't buy or purchase.”

“Real prosperity comes from everybody in the country working together in a growth mode. Real prosperity comes as a result of people's own initiative and efforts and so forth. Prosperity, if it comes from the government, is not prosperity. It's an existence or a subsistence or whatever, but it isn't prosperity.”

“You know why there's a Second Amendment? In case the government fails to follow the first one.”