America is much less violent than it was 20, 30 years ago, and immigration is much less a problem than it was not just 20, 30 years ago, but when I came in as president.

You can’t let your failures define you. You have to let your failures teach you.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Keep exploring. Keep dreaming. Keep asking why. Don’t settle for what you already know. Never stop believing in the power of your ideas, your imagination, your hard work to change the world.

When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything, you just let them talk.

Just because we have the best hammer does not mean that every problem is a nail.

Change is never easy, but always possible.

Don’t ever let anybody tell you that your efforts don’t matter or that your voice doesn’t count. Don’t ever believe that you can’t make a difference. You have.

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up.

Learning to stand in somebody else's shoes, to see through their eyes, that's how peace begins. And it's up to you to make that happen. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.

If somebody is different from you, that's not something you criticize, that's something that you appreciate.

I became a marine mom with the signing of a paper, but it would take a phone call, late one night, for me to fully absorb the impact this new title would have on my life.

There are enough cowards in the world without killing a brave creature for so little reason.

The first rough draft of history.

Wars, invented and organized by the highest available consciousnesses (do the worms go to war? do the fish? do the paramecia?), are the planet's chief source and cause of torment.

Any mature, responsible adult doesn't run around stomping their feet and screaming 'I'm a mature, responsible, adult.'

A coole mouth, and warme feet, live long.

Contemplate sweetly on love, and the wisdom of God shall find you.

Just go outside and look at something and write it down and you'll find it is a very nice piece of writing.

More than four billion people live within a stone's throw of the ocean, so what happens to it affects them immediately, daily, whether pollution, more frequent storms, or rising sea levels.

Anything you read can influence your work, so I try to read good stuff.