I am not going to use the federal government's authority deliberately to circumvent the natural inclination of people to live in ethnic homogeneous neighborhoods.

The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.

What are the things that you can't see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love...They're the guiding lights of a life.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war.

All I want is the same thing you want. To have a nation with a government that is as good and honest and decent and competent and compassionate and as filled with love as are the American people.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

The test of a government is not how popular it is with the powerful and privileged few but how honestly and fairly it deals with the many who must depend on it.

America has no functioning democracy at this moment.

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.

It is difficult for the common good to prevail against the intense concentration of those who have a special interest, especially if the decisions are made behind locked doors.

Look deeply into life, and study it as diligently as the other arts and sciences.

Who could trust language?

If you want a job making toys, move to China.

I perceived that I wouldn't have to go out and search for what I was supposed to do- it would unfold before me.

Being a father is the most rewarding thing a man whose career has plateaued can do.

Don't ever let no one tell you, you ain't beautiful

If we repeal [ Barack Obama's health care law] as Donald [Trump] has proposed, all of those benefits I have mentioned are lost to everybody...and then we will have to start all over again.

What sells a book sells a book, same in traditional or self-publishing . You gotta shake your tail feathers.

General Washington had rather incautiously encamped the bulk of his army on Long Island - a large and plentiful district about two miles from the city of New York

I guess the glass ceiling is in the West. For us, it's the glass wall.