“Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.”

Teaching has always been, for me, linked to issues of social justice. I’ve never considered it a neutral or passive profession.

… Geniuses have a little extra something. There’s that little something that you know is a little different.

I know that’s a little jarring, coming from a Weatherman, but what I mean by being humble is doubting if your action did anything. So you have to open your eyes, act and doubt. And then you have to repeat for a lifetime.

Now teach-ins are fairly common or they become common place. But in 1965, the Students for Democratic Society in Ann Harbor organized the first teach-in.

A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don’t need it.

They’ve just memorized that stupid fact sheet. And we thought, gosh do we sound that good? It didn’t seem possible. But that was my introduction to politics.

I wish I knew as much about anything today as I knew about everything when I was twenty.

If you listen to the debate, [Barack Obama] and [John] McCain said the same thing about gay rights.

I proposed a law that every country where the U.S. has a military base – those people should be allowed to vote in the American election.

Something about the fact that an African American had, given the long sad history of our country, now become President – that was exhilarating.

Well, first of all I think that we have to be careful with terms like the working class, obviously. When [Karl] Marx wrote about the working class he was writing about something much more bounded than we’re talking about.

When you go into a college of education you’ve got aspirations of making a difference in people’s lives, of loving children, of working with kids, but none of that is affirmed in your college of education.

I said something idiotic like, as [William] Shakespeare says, “Action is eloquence,” and the judge just frowned at me and gave me a couple weeks in jail.

Everyone who knew [Barack] Obama from being in Hyde Park knew he was the smartest guy in any room he walked into; a decent, compassionate, lovely person; pragmatic, middle-of-the-road and ambitious.

I always say your body is the temple of your spirit, why not decorate it? My kids say, no, no, your body is the temple of your spirit, keep it clean. I’m covered in tattoos and I get a tattoo every time I write a book. I get the tattoo from the book.

The idea that teaching is somehow the delivery of the goods is such a misunderstanding of what actually goes on.

As a consequence, it is the most democratic and most competitive of all sports because individual merit can prevail despite economic equality. It is a sport for everyone, the whole world over.

But what really makes America the unique nation it is, is that we speak up about human rights, and anti-corruption, and good governance, and democratic institutions. That’s what America is known for. That’s what inspires people around the world with U.S. leadership.

I think it no accident that most of those emigrating to America in the 19th century identified with the Democratic Party. We are a heterogeneous party made up of Americans of diverse backgrounds.

It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

Democracy, like liberty, justice and other social and political rights, is not “given”, it is earned through courage, resolution and sacrifice.

There’s a vast difference between no checkmate and stalemate. This is what the democratic process is like.

If you look at the democratic process as a game of chess, there have to be many, many moves before you get to checkmate. And simply because you do not make any checkmate in three moves does not mean it’s stalemate.