“We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter – and to write it in the books of law.”

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.

To whom do I give my new elegant little book? Cui dono lepidum novum libellum?

A book in a man’s brain is better off than a book bound in calf – at any rate it is safer from criticism.

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.

I’m old-fashioned and think that reading books is the most glorious pastime that humankind has yet devised.

Life must not be a novel that is given to us, but one that is made by us.

I must have books everywhere. They’re the soul of a room-they reveal the taste, the interests, and the secrets of whoever lives there.

I never set out to write a book to change women’s lives, to change history. It’s like, ‘Who, me?’ Yes, me. I did it. And I’m not that different from other women. Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman.

Even the worst book can give us something to think about.