I always tell young people in particular: Do not say that nothing's changed when it comes to race in America, unless you lived through being a black man in the 1950s or '60s or '70s.

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.

Literature decays only as men become more and more corrupt.

Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music.

Who will be my equal?

A great wine served in fine glassware is beautiful. But it is also seductive and full of strange promise and perhaps the slightest hint of naughtiness, all waiting to be uncoiled.

My policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria station and go anywhere I damn well please!

I didn't know whether to laugh, s*it, or go blind!

Never waste a good crisis...Don't waste it when it can have a very positive impact on climate change and energy security.

Work hard, earn a great living, get whatever you want out of life, have all the stuff you want. But there should be a ceiling on it-enough is enough!

Let us not attack those who disagree. Let us defend those who follow.

Our culture rightly admires risk-takers, but we need our 'heed-takers' more than ever.