“The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential.”

Nothing is easier than spending public money. It does not appear to belong to anybody. The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on somebody.

In life there is nothing more common than talent and intelligence. What is missing is passion, persistence, commitment, and dedication.

We must have no carelessness in our dealings with public property or the expenditure of public money. Such a condition is characteristic either of an undeveloped people, or of a decadent civilization. America is neither.

We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

The higher state to which [America] seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.

Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.

Ultimately property rights and personal rights are the same thing.

The best help that benevolence and philanthropy can give is that which induces everybody to help himself.

Whether one traces his Americanism back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine. No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.

Don’t expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.

Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.

Anytime you don’t want anything you get it.

If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

You can’t increase prosperity by taxing success.

School is not the end but only the beginning of an education.

The destiny of the colored American is the destiny of America.

With all its faults, the American political system is the freest and most democratic in the world.

I think the American people should express their preferences, and we’ll accept their choice.

Well for one, the 13th amendment to the constitution of the US which abolished slavery – did not abolish slavery for those convicted of a crime.

One thing we can all do to honour the struggle for racial justice in the US is to interrogate, understand and dismantle the racist structures of our own countries.

It is a moral outrage that the richest family in America pays workers at Walmart starvation wages.

The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world.

As Japan, I would like to firmly fulfill the responsibility of the host country.