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

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.

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.

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.

So…we’ll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigod.

Can I love someone...and still think/fly? Love is flying, sown, floating. Thought is solitary flight, beating wings.

Different denotes neither bad nor good, but it certainly means not the same.

Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the evening. Sleep in the night.

I tested for a couple of pilots, but they said I was too tall.

Buhhdism is wisdom. As long as we have wisdom, we can put all things to the best use, we can turn everything in the direction of happiness.

What in the world would I sing for if I had it all?

Character is what you are in the dark.

I did Chekhov's Three Sisters once. Two months in, I remember going, "Human beings shouldn't be forced to do or watch this play every night." It's so dark and so bottomless.

There is some joy in weeping. For our tears Fill up the cup, then wash our pain away.