I'll never tell a lie. I'll never make a misleading statement. I'll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I'll never avoid a controversial issue.

The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.

What are the things that you can't see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love...They're the guiding lights of a life.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

All I want is the same thing you want. To have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it.

America has no functioning democracy at this moment.

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.

The morality of a society is often dangerous and very unethical.

Rejoice and be glad all you who hope in the Lord.

The fight for truth...is not just our right as free citizens of free societies. It is our duty as citizens of the earth.

Marriage is the legal method devised to end love without pain.

If your songs connect with the fans and they pump their fists in the air and go "Yeah!!" that's when a song really works. That's the electric church of it. The glory hallelujah of it.

I'm sort of annoyed that some very basic things about poetic forms were not conveyed to me in the various poetry courses I took over the years.

There isn't a mayor in the world or a president in the world that can stop homicides.

If support for traditional marriage is bigotry, then Barack Obama was a bigot until just before the 2012 election.

Sometimes when you open a book, time stops.

For if we're destroyed, the knowledge is dead...We're nothing more than dust jackets for books...so many pages to a person.