If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

There are some cases in which the sense of injury breeds not the will to inflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all injury.

Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.

I never leaf through a copy of National Geographic without realizing how lucky we are to live in a society where it is traditional to wear clothes.

This is the mark of a really admirable man: steadfastness in the face of trouble.

We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

I have no human feelings.

Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.

Yeah, it’s pretty hard not to be completely cynical these days.

On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did – or did not do – to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do.

Maybe if everybody in leadership was a woman, you might not get into the conflicts in the first place. But if you watch the women who have made it to the top, they haven’t exactly been non-aggressive – including me.

We need to, you know, restore people. We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it is simply a tragedy.

Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

All government, of course, is against liberty.

Poverty breeds despair. We know this. Despair breeds violence. We know this. In turbulent times, isn’t it cheaper, and smarter, to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes… can no longer be of concern to great powers alone.

Respect the burden.

What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.

Modesty forbids what the law does not.

I would be stupid not to be on my own side. But I’m a human being, too. And I’m on the side of human beings, rather than on the side of crocodiles.

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.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one – keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

I’ve been to those places where it’s ‚poor, pitiful me.‘

People have me pinned as a shark or a predator in some way, and in no way am I that. I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone. I want to defend people. I want to help people.

It is not part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious.

Sooner or later we’re all someone’s dog.

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

Our lifetime may be the last that will be lived out in a technological society.

Our society is illuminated by the spiritual insights of the Hebrew prophets. America and Israel have a common love of human freedom, and they have a common faith in a democratic way of life.

Wars are, of course, as a rule to be avoided; but they are far better than certain kinds of peace.

Never elated when someone’s oppressed, never dejected when another one’s blessed.

As a musician and a songwriter, it is an act of the ego to believe that other people might be interested in your point of view. But it is usually an empathetic nature that gets you going in the first place. Music keeps the heart porous in many ways.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

I realized quickly what Mandela and Tambo meant to ordinary Africans. It was a place where they could come and find a sympathetic ear and a competent ally, a place where they would not be either turned away or cheated, a place where they might actually feel proud to be represented by men of their own skin color.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don’t just be mad at him or her.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings.

If workers are more insecure, that’s very ‚healthy‘ for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won’t ask for wages, they won’t go on strike, they won’t call for benefits; they’ll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that’s optimal for corporations‘ economic health.

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do.

War is not an exercise of the will directed at an inanimate matter.

It’s presumptuous to say you know how somebody feels.

When you’re in prison, you want to know that you were thought about.

I started out in anthropology, so to me how society works, how people put themselves together and make things work, has always been a big interest.

But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.

Remind yourself that winning an argument or proving your point really gets you nowhere in the long run. Win through your actions, not your words.

Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.

The gift of loneliness is sometimes a radical vision of society or one’s people that has not previously been taken into account.

The notion that we have even one single veteran living on the streets should be just considered a travesty to all of us.

Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.

Nonviolence is a good policy when the conditions permit.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.