America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is to make kinder the face of the nation and gentler the face of the world.

Speak ill of no man, but speak all the good you know of everybody.

Not only do I think being nice and kind is easy but being kind, in my opinion, is important.

Indeed, it is as important to learn how to receive a blessing as it is to be willing to give one.

If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

The world is full of hopeful analogies and handsome, dubious eggs, called possibilities.

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.

I always ask God to work through me and let me be a light of some kind and help in this world, so I always pray for that, and I always want to do good.

Do not let spacious plans for a new world divert your energies from saving what is left of the old.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

What money is better bestowed than that of a schoolboy’s tip? How the kindness is recalled by the recipient in after days! It blesses him that gives and him that takes.

No lying knight or lying priest ever prospered in any age, but especially not in the dark ones. Men prospered then only in following an openly declared purpose, and preaching candidly beloved and trusted creeds.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life.

A lot has happened over the years. And while this nation has been tested by war, and it’s been tested by recession and all manner of challenges – I stand before you again tonight, after almost two terms as your president, to tell you I am more optimistic about the future of America than ever before.

I’m afraid that reason will triumph and that the world will become a place where anyone who doesn’t fit that will become unnecessary.

I believe the destiny of your generation – and your nation – is a rendezvous with excellence.

There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America.

I would go to the deeps a hundred times to cheer a downcast spirit. It is good for me to have been afflicted, that I might know how to speak a word in season to one that is weary.

When people need love and understanding and support the most is when they deserve it the least.

What makes life dreary is the want of a motive.

It is easy to dismiss the world as ‚irrelevant,‘ or consumed by ‚paranoid anti-Americanism,‘ but perhaps not wise.

So while I will never minimize the costs involved in military action, I am convinced that a failure to act in Libya would have carried a far greater price for America.

I think that growing up in a crowded continent like Europe with an awful lot of competing claims, ideas… cultures… and systems of thought, we have, perforce, developed a more sophisticated notion of what the word ‚freedom‘ means than I see much evidence of in America.

You were not created to just get by with an average, unrewarding, or unfulfilling life. God created you to leave your mark on this generation.

Old men are dangerous: it doesn’t matter to them what is going to happen to the world.

The action we take and the decisions we make in this decade will have consequences far into this century. If America shows weakness and uncertainty, the world will drift toward tragedy. That will not happen on my watch.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Before I started school striking I had no energy, no friends and I didn’t speak to anyone. I just sat alone at home, with an eating disorder. All of that is gone now, since I have found a meaning, in a world that sometimes seems shallow and meaningless to so many people.

The glory of the nation rests in the character of her men. And character comes from boyhood. Thus, every boy is a challenge to his elders.

A man is ethical only when life, as such, is sacred to him, that of plants and animals as that of his fellow men, and when he devotes himself helpfully to all life that is in need of help.

Public education is our greatest pathway to opportunity in America. So we need to invest in and strengthen our public universities today, and for generations to come.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

For me, America is really, truly the indispensable nation.

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.

You know, we love stories and we love narrative; we love to get lost in an author’s world.

‚Tis love that makes the world go round, my baby.

Unfortunately, after Sept. 11, there was an outburst in America of intense suffering and patriotism, and the Bush administration was very shrewd and effective in painting anyone who disagreed with the policies as unpatriotic or even traitorous.

Society therefore is as ancient as the world.

Faith crosses every border and touches every heart in every nation.

I have no doubt that Russia will and should remain a major source of energy supplies for Europe and the world.

It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves, you know, to put other people down, or make fun of them, or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn’t make me feel good at all.

Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it’s at the end of your arm, as you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others.

My father always taught me that when you help other people, then God will give you double. And that’s what has really happened to me. When I have helped other people who are in need, God has helped me more.

Surely our job while we’re here on Earth is to learn about the world, not to create parallel universes.

It’s very inexpensive to give a compliment.

America is a Nation with a mission – and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace – a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

America’s promises do not come with a price tag. We meet our commitments. We bear our burdens. That’s one of the reasons why almost every country on Earth sees America as stronger and more respected today than they did eight years ago when I took office.

‚Nation‘ was one that I’d have killed myself if I hadn’t written it. It was absolutely important to me that I wrote it. It was good for my soul.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

The world, we are told, was made especially for man – a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God’s universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves.

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.

The fragrance of flowers spreads only in the direction of the wind. But the goodness of a person spreads in all directions.

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

The opportunities of America opened out to me the public schools. They carried me to the professional training of an American university. I began by working with my own hands for my daily bread.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

Since coming back from overseas, this is more of a foreign country than the places overseas. I don’t understand it. It’s like America has lost faith in rational thought.

Everything in the universe has a purpose. Indeed, the invisible intelligence that flows through everything in a purposeful fashion is also flowing through you.

There are some loony people in this world!