An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

Let me tell you what I literally told every world leader I’ve met with, and I’ve met them all: It’s never, never, never been a good bet to bet against America. We have the finest fighting force in the world.

Music is always a commentary on society.

Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.

Humanity, you never had it to begin with.

It is to the middle-class we must look for the safety of England.

It seems like we wake up and it’s a race until you get to bed. It gets to you after a while and you think, ‚What the hell am I doing?‘

Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

A lot of people are bored of all the political correctness.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

The fault lines are shifting from the boundaries of nations into the web of our societies and the streets of our cities. And, terrorism and extremism are a global force that are larger than their changing names, groups, territories and targets.

If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. It means to think of something over and over.

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

It is clearly better that property should be private, but the use of it common; and the special business of the legislator is to create in men this benevolent disposition.

I continue to care for President Obama and for his family. I think that in many ways they are very courageous people, and I honor that, because I know what it means to live as a black person in a racist America.

Nobody’s ever called me Sir Richard. Occasionally in America, I hear people saying Sir Richard and think there’s some Shakespearean play taking place. But nowhere else anyway.

I don’t think even ungodly people realize what a society would be like that had no godly influence at all.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.

As a global society, we do not have to agree, endorse or condone the lifestyle choices of others. However, history has taught us that we equally cannot and should not excuse those who would hide behind religion or misuse God’s word to justify bigotry and persecution.

Indeed, we’re strongest when the face of America isn’t only a soldier carrying a gun but also a diplomat negotiating peace, a Peace Corps volunteer bringing clean water to a village, or a relief worker stepping off a cargo plane as floodwaters rise.

Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we’re hardwired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country’s scared.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

If it weren’t for painting, I wouldn’t live; I couldn’t bear the extra strain of things.

My head’s never really quiet. The only time I can get it to turn off is if I watch ‚CSI‘ or ‚Law & Order,‘ where I have to follow the crime. If I can’t turn my head off during that, I know I’ve really got a problem.

Democracy don’t rule the world, You’d better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess that’s better left unsaid.

I know from personal experience how damaging it can be to live with bitterness and unforgiveness. I like to say it’s like taking poison and hoping your enemy will die. And it really is that harmful to us to live this way.

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

I am alone; I am always alone no matter what.

America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

I happen to be a big fan of Western civilization; I think it beats the hell out of tyranny and starvation.

Every man who possibly can should force himself to a holiday of a full month in a year, whether he feels like taking it or not.

In America, there might be better gastronomic destinations than New Orleans, but there is no place more uniquely wonderful.

I found that with depression, one of the most important things you could realise is that you’re not alone.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

This is not Johnson’s war. This is America’s war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

Our brains are either our greatest assets or our greatest liabilities.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

With increasing age, dullness of mind and heart sets in.

I am certain no one sets out to be cruel, but our treatment of the elderly ill seems to have no philosophy to it. As a society, we should establish whether we have a policy of life at any cost.

The masculine spirit is under assault. It’s obvious.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

I was in enough to get along with people. I was never socially inarticulate. Not a loner. And that saved my life, saved my sanity. That and the writing. But to this day I distrust anybody who thought school was a good time. Anybody.

Where fear is, happiness is not.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

We live in ugly times.

Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can’t get it out, I start feeling bad about myself – a lot of self-loathing.

Happiness is the cessation of suffering.

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

We know that the nation that goes all-in on innovation today will own the global economy tomorrow. This is an edge America cannot surrender.

The probability of apocalypse soon cannot be realistically estimated, but it is surely too high for any sane person to contemplate with equanimity.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.

Meditation is difficult for many people because their thoughts are always on some distant object or place. One form of meditation is to label the thought as it appears and then choose to let it go.

I feel like I want to take care of everyone and I also feel this terrible guilt if I am unable to. And I have felt this way ever since all this success started.

Whenever the speech is corrupted so is the mind.

Governments don’t control people like they used to.

Guilt: the gift that keeps on giving.