America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

Excellence is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well.

Political extremism involves two prime ingredients: an excessively simple diagnosis of the world's ills, and a conviction that there are identifiable villains back of it all.

The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursuing his education.

Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.

Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants.

True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents.

Some people strengthen the society just by being the kind of people they are.

History never looks like history when you are living through it. It always looks confusing and messy, and it always feels uncomfortable.

The cynic says, "One man can't do anything". I say, "Only one man can do anything."

If you have some respect for people as they are, you can be more effective in helping them to become better than they are.

The radical elements in Islam are very dangerous. They want to achieve a return to the Islamic purity of the Middle Ages.

Racism does not diminish with brains, it's a disease, a sickness, it may incubate in ignorance but it doesn't necessarily disappear with the gaining of wisdom!

'Keep your head down at school.' Those are sage words from my dad. They kept me in check for years.

When in doubt, exchange.

... there can be no real beauty without neatness and order.

The world needs change, change needs an activity. It has to be planted by a thought.

A theater person should know what holds an audience and what does not.

It wouldn't quite be fair to say September 11, like, made my career.

If there's a demand of being together in a certain way, those expectations and judgements take away from that space and create an edginess and a cramped-ness to the relationship.

Do not that to another, which thou wouldst not have done to thyself.