The current issue of the Harvard Law Bulletin has some interesting quotes from certain of Harvard Law School's alumni who went on to prominent political careers.
Here are some thoughts from Casper Weinberger:

"People keep saying, 'But what is enough and how much is enough [in the military budget]?' And the only answer to that is, 'If you don't have enough, you'll never know it until it's too late to do anything about it.'"
..."You have to recognize that there are just some things that you can't do. The trouble with Americans is, they simply can't believe anybody is evil. And there are evil people, and they have to be dealt with."
"When President Reagan talked about the Evil Empire, it was attacked by people who said he'd undone years of patient diplomatic effort. And he said he would like to see what years of patient diplomatic effort had secured for us--not much."

Now, here is a quote from Michael Dukakis:

"If I had become president? I think there'd be peace in the Middle East. I'd like to think we would have universal health care in this country. We'd certainly have a national rail passenger system that would knock your socks off."

(According to the profile, Dukakis is vice-chairman of Amtrak, whose performance does not exactly reflect well on his promises about a high-speed train system.)

Thanks to Dan McLaughlin for the link.