“I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.”

I am not a fatalist. I have just been reading War and Peace and Tolstoy is such a fatalist. I think people can make a difference, I am an optimist who worries a lot.

The voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.

Whatever the job you are asked to do at whatever level, do a good job because your reputation is your resume.

Wilson’s doctrine of self-determination gave a boost to the idea that wherever there dwelled a people, there should be a state.

While democracy in the long run is the most stable form of government, in the short run, it is among the most fragile.

I do not believe that things happen accidentally; I believe you earn them.

To reduce the sum of our existence to a competitive struggle for advantage among more than two hundred nations is not clear-eyed but myopic. People and nations compete, but that is not all that they do.

Good guys don’t always win, especially when they are divided and less determined than their adversaries.

The main thing is to remain oneself, under any circumstances; that was and is our common purpose.

If an advertiser can use that information to home in on a consumer because of his or her individual interests, what’s to stop a Fascist government from doing the same?

Especially when we are afraid, angry, or confused, we may be tempted to give away bits of our freedom—or, less painfully, somebody else’s freedom—in the quest for direction and order.

The main thing is to remain oneself, under any circumstances; that was and is our common purpose.

A spoonful of sugar can be as helpful in dealing with foreign diplomats as it is in child psychology, for these are not unrelated fields.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

Respect for the rights of others is a lofty principle; but envy is a primal urge (p114)

Because of my parents’ love of democracy, we came to America after being driven twice from our home in Czechoslovakia – first by Hitler and then by Stalin.

Once you believe in yourself and see your soul as divine and precious, you’ll automatically be converted to a being who can create miracles.

American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created.

We all have a beautiful gift called the imagination to create our dreams.  

Build the life you want to live.

It takes time to create excellence. If it could be done quickly, more people would do it.

Love creates an “us” without destroying the “me”.

I’ve gone beyond civil rights and human rights to creation rights.

The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man.