The best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.

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.

This is the secret of life: the self lives only by dying, finds its identity (and its happiness) only by self-forgetfulness, self-giving, self-sacrifice, and agape love.

Groceries became a revelation: the people coming out with bundles of food. It's all like a great ceremony, and the whole drudgery of shopping has become my inspiration.

My greatest fear is disappointing the reader, so each book has to be better than the one before.

Every accomplishment, every refined talent, every useful attainment in mathematics, music, and in all sciences, and art belong to the Saints.

Just let go. Let go of how you thought your life should be, and embrace the life that is trying to work its way into your consciousness.

It is necessary for men to be deceived in religion.

All space must be attached to a value, to a public dimension. There is no private space. The only private space that you can imagine is the human mind.

The mind can be our best friend and advocate in getting what we want in life, or it can pull the brakes on and be a nasty little foe – the choice is yours – choose your attitude.

There was an art to the male posterior. That's all there was to it.

With big folks, either people think you look mean or it's more of a jolly Santa Claus, 'Oh, he's just a pudgy little teddy bear pillow.'