America makes prodigious mistakes, America has colossal faults, but one thing cannot be denied: America is always on the move. She may be going to Hell, of course, but at least she isn’t standing still.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

Eight years ago, you may remember Hillary and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination. We battled for a year and a half. Let me tell you, it was tough, because Hillary was tough. I was worn out. She was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers, it was backwards in heels.

Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.

Don’t let anybody make you think God chose America as His divine messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world.

In the course of history, men come to see that iron necessity is neither iron nor necessary.

The vegetable life does not content itself with casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, thousands may plant themselves, that hundreds may come up, that tens may live to maturity; that, at least one may replace the parent.

When it comes to space, I see it as my job, I’m building infrastructure the hard way. I’m using my resources to put in place heavy lifting infrastructure so the next generation of people can have a dynamic, entrepreneurial explosion into space.

Fortitude is the marshal of thought, the armor of the will, and the fort of reason.

Of all acts of man repentance is the most divine. The greatest of all faults is to be conscious of none.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

The day will come – and it is not far off – when the legacy of Lincoln will finally be fulfilled at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when a black man or woman will sit in the Oval Office. When that day comes, the most remarkable thing about it will be how naturally it occurs.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

The name Zahra was to have been lman’s own name at birth, but a senior member of the family changed it to lman at the last minute.

Those who have a true understanding of America know that we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.

Since the beginning, it was just the same. The only difference, the crowds are bigger now.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy – the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities – which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

Last year we said, ‚Things can’t go on like this‘, and they didn’t, they got worse.

Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.

You have to be able to accept failure to get better.

I like America, just as everybody else does. I love America, I gotta say that. But America will be judged.

Chinese people themselves, they really want change.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.

Any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.

Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

I suppose we need not go mourning the buffaloes. In the nature of things, they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness.

In my entire life, any time I’ve ever lost something, I’ve gotten something even better going around the next corner. It’s like one door closes and another door opens. As long as I can walk through the produce section in every grocery store in this country and eat the grapes that they’re going to throw away, I know I can be fine.

America is a nation that conceives many odd inventions for getting somewhere but it can think of nothing to do once it gets there.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

Money does not change people, people change.

People seem to know about May Day everywhere except where it began, here in the United States of America. That’s because those in power have done everything they can to erase its real meaning.

Let him that would move the world first move himself.

Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation.

Civilization is the making of civil persons.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

A man has a tendency to accept you the way you are, while most women immediately start to pick flaws and want to change you.

The good old days, when each idea had an owner, are gone forever.

Life isn’t meant to be easy. It’s hard to take being on the top – or on the bottom. I guess I’m something of a fatalist. You have to have a sense of history, I think, to survive some of these things… Life is one crisis after another.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.

The first condition of progress is the removal of censorship.

By any accepted standard, I have had more than nine lives. I counted them up once, and there were 13 times I almost and maybe should have died.

When things are really dismal, you can laugh, or you can cave in completely.

In the struggle between yourself and the world second the world.

The movement of search can only be from the known to the known, and all that the mind can do is to be aware that this movement will never uncover the unknown. Any movement on the part of the known is still within the field of the known.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

There will be no prison which can hold our movement down.

Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America’s servicemen and women.

I think, often, people who run away are people who got into things most enthusiastically, and then they want more. They just demand more of life than what is happening in the moment. Sometimes this is a great mistake, as it’s always a good deal different than you expect it.

Egotism is the source and summary of all faults and miseries.

In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes.

Football is a game you cannot play without making mistakes.