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.

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

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.

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 much for a “Happy Halloween!” I thought sarcastically. I should wear a huge sign around my neck from now onwards that reads: ‘Stay clear of me if you want your party to survive the night’!

Such kindness wasn't a gift but a goad, scraping against one's skin like a yoke of thorns. She would have preferred him stiff, defensive, even offensive.

Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.

Failure isn't an option. I've erased the word fear from my vocabulary and I think when you erase fear you can't fail.

Today, conducting is a question of ego: a lot of people believe they are actually playing the music.

As you get older, don't slow down. Speed up. There's less time left!

If you are a lighthouse, you cannot hide yourself; if you hide yourself, you cannot be a lighthouse!

We are unutterably alone essentially, especially in the things most intimate and most important.

Elegant as simplicity, and warm As ecstasy.

When we become fixed in our perceptions we lose our ability to fly.