I am worrying about my country. I feel I have a responsibility as a novelist to do something.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone’s life.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

The government’s job is good governance for everybody. My government will make policies; if you fit into it, come on board, or stay where you are. My job is not to spoon-feed anyone.

My momma didn’t clean up floors so I could be a thug… so I could wear my pants down.

As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what’s happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don’t seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids.

I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began.

The price of greatness is responsibility.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

It is, after all, the responsibility of the expert to operate the familiar and that of the leader to transcend it.

A sword never kills anybody; it is a tool in the killer’s hand.

It’s a blessing that South Africa has a man like Nelson Mandela.

Duty cannot exist without faith.

The spirit of America has nurtured responsibility and community unlike any other country.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

For 25 years countless people have come to the U.N. climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future. I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not.

Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

Responsibility is the price of freedom.

It started to weigh on me that I was responsible for the moves that had made me successful, but I wasn’t reaping the lion’s share of the profits, and that was problematic for me.

What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds.

It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person. So violence isn’t merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility – I welcome it.

What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.

It was a privilege to pray with Governor Romney – for his family and our country.

We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.

We all have the duty to do good.

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

The best thing about being a dad? Well, I think it’s just the thing that every man wants – to have a son and heir.

You gotta water your plants. Nobody can water them for you.

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be… The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

I repeat… that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

A lot of times, people make other people responsible for their joy: ‚You’re not making me happy, you’re not doing this, you’re not doing that.‘

I am so tired of fear. And I don’t want my girls to live in a country, in a world, based on fear.

Certainly I’ll never be able to put myself in the situation that people growing up in the less developed countries are in. I’ve gotten a bit of a sense of it by being out there and meeting people and talking with them.

The best thing about my protest has been to see how more and more people have been coming and getting involved.

Personally yes I want our country to have one league. When it’s going to be one league, which we all are hearing, it has to be abiding by AFC rules.

Every right implies a responsibility; Every opportunity, an obligation, Every possession, a duty.

I was so upset with what was going on in the world. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being people tortured and that we even had such a thing as war. I hated the older generation, who had not done anything about it. Punk was a call-to-arms for me.

In every country and every age, the priest had been hostile to Liberty.

The issues a president faces are not black and white, and cannot be boiled down into 140 characters. Because when you have the nuclear codes at your fingertips and the military at your command, you can’t make snap decisions. You can’t have a thin skin or the tendency to lash out.

Be the chief but never the lord.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

The real danger is not inaction. The real danger is when politicians and CEOs are making it look like action is happening when in fact nothing is being done.

Our country was founded by geniuses, but it’s being run by idiots.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

To some extent I happily don’t know what I’m doing. I feel that it’s an artist’s responsibility to trust that.

I think it’s my responsibility, as a person of influence… to sometimes try to do what I can.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I’m the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.

Many people listen to what I have to say and I appear a lot in media, so therefore I influence a lot of people and therefore I have a bigger responsibility because I have a bigger platform.

The ‚anti-globalisation movement‘ is the most significant proponent of globalisation – but in the interests of people, not concentrations of state-private power.

Do your duty and a little more and the future will take care of itself.

My message to all the activists is to just keep going, and I know it really may seem impossible and hopeless sometimes – it always does – so you just have to keep going because if you try hard enough and long enough you will make a difference.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence… on pain of liquidation.

People tell me that they are so hopeful when they see me and other children ‚school-striking,‘ and they say, ‚Oh the children are going to save us.‘ But no, we aren’t. We are too young to be able to do that. We don’t have time to wait for us to grow up and fix this in the future.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.