We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don't make us weak. They're the source of our strength.

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.

I finally understood that what we put into the world, into the universe, often has a way of coming right back to us.

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.

Fear will give us a reason not to try; hope will give us a reason not to listen.

We have fallen in love with the body. That's that thing that looks back at us from the mirror. That's the repository of that lovely identity that you keep chasing all your life.

I use as sensitive a line as possible when I draw on the plate.

For the weak who seek power it'll bring, infallible the power, knowledge is king.

I am inspired by life, past experiences, what's to come, women around me, art, colors, paintings, and emotions.

I'd heard that Lenny Bruce used a lot of profanity and obscenities in his act, and I was curious.

Get the culture right, and everything else just falls into place.