“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”

The future does not belong to those who are content with today Rather, it will belong to those who can blend vision, reason, and courage in a personal commitment.

If you never quit, youll never fail.

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.

Together, we can make ourselves a nation that spends more on books than on bombs, more on hospitals than the terrible tools of war, more on decent houses than military aircraft.

While free markets tend to democratize a society, unfettered capitalism leads invariably to corporate control of government.

Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.

Fear not the path of Truth for the lack of People walking on it.

The intolerant man will not rely on persuasion, or on the worth of the idea. He would deny to others the very freedom of opinion or of dissent which he so stridently demands for himself. He cannot trust democracy.

I dream of things that are not and ask why not.

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.

This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

It is the essence of responsibility to put the public good ahead of personal gain.

Always forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.

I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.

Better to sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.

Better do nothing than do ill.

My body is but the lees of my better being.

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.

And I knew that it was better to live out one’s absurdity than to die for that of others.

Man is not made better by being degraded; he is seldom restrained from crime by harsh measures, except the principle of fear predominates in his character; and then he is never made radically better for its influence.

Better be an old maid, a woman with herself as a husband, than the wife of a fool; and Solomon more than hints that all men are fools; and every wise man knows himself to be one.

If you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.