“Our understanding of how to live with one another is still far behind our knowledge of how to destroy one another.”

Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There’s nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

In a nation of millions and a world of billions, the individual is still the first and basic agent of change.

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject itself, or know where to find it.

Light at the end of the tunnel? We don’t even have a tunnel; we don’t even know where the tunnel is.

I am going to build the kind of nation that President Roosevelt hoped for, President Truman worked for, and President Kennedy died for.

…International education cannot be the work of one country. It is the responsibility and promise of all nations. It calls for free exchange and full collaboration…The knowledge of our citizens is one treasure which grows only when it is shared.

While you’re saving your face, you’re losing your ass.

If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking.

Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

No national sovereignty rules in outer space. Those who venture there go as envoys of the entire human race. Their quest, therefore, must be for all mankind, and what they find should belong to all mankind.

If you let a bully come in and chase you out of your front yard, he’ll be on your porch and the next day he’ll rape your wife in your own bed.

Lincoln was right about not fooling all the people all the time. But Republicans haven’t given up trying.

Education is the key to opportunity in our society, and the equality of educational opportunity must be the birthright of every citizen.

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.

I’m the only president you’ve got.

We can’t leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world’s people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.

No kid in the world, no woman in the world should ever raise a hand against a no-good daddy. That’s already been taken care of: A Man Who Destroys His Own Home Shall Inherit the Wind.

Here we are, the most clever species ever to have lived. So how is it we can destroy the only planet we have?

Let the beauty of solitude heal and not destroy.

Luxury destroys more efficiently than war.

I loved him greatly, only to be hurt and destroyed by the unstable feelings breathing within him.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.