One of the most serious problems that our country has inherited an unwillingness to talk to anyone who disagrees with us or who won't accept, before a discussion, all the premises that we demand.

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.

Only trust thyself, and another shall not betray thee.

Our rule is the works of mercy... It is the way of sacrifice, worship, a sense of reverence.

I'd witnessed for the first time in my vampire- obsessed existence an actual vampire bite. The only problem was that it wasn't my neck being bitten.

The intellectuals and the young, booted and spurred, feel themselves born to ride us.

I’m quite hyper, and my wife would prefer it if I sat down and read a book.

Please pass me the peace weed, and take some heed. Throw away all that mixed up speed.

In the last fifty years science has advanced more than in the 2,000 previous years and given mankind greater powers over the forces of nature than the ancients ascribed to their gods.

I majored in geology in college but have majored in Herbert Hoover ever since.

I walk around with a hat, sunglasses, and sunscreen all the time.

...true self-esteem comes from competence, not the other way around.