I’m reasonably optimistic about the future, especially the future of the United States – for the century, at least.

The sun is gone, but I have a light.

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.

I’m living in the present, thinking about the past, hoping for the future.

The future of American film lies on television.

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

I believe we are still so innocent. The species are still so innocent that a person who is apt to be murdered believes that the murderer, just before he puts the final wrench on his throat, will have enough compassion to give him one sweet cup of water.

Any negotiated, peaceful solution to the problems between the United States and peoples, or any people of Latin America, which does not imply force or the use of force, must be addressed in accordance with international principles and norms.

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.

How sweet it is to learn the Savior’s love when nobody else loves us! When friends flee, what a blessed thing it is to see that the Savior does not forsake us but still keeps us and holds us fast and clings to us and will not let us go!

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.

Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.

I was distressed that after 9/11, when the United States was attacked by terrorists, the United States‘ response was to attack Afghanistan, where some of the terrorists had been.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Hope is a waking dream.

We have got to change our ethics and our financial system and our whole way of understanding the world. It has to be a world in which people live rather than die; a sustainable world. It could be great.

There are going to be good days and bad days. Bottom line.

In a time not distant, it will be possible to flash any image formed in thought on a screen and render it visible at any place desired. The perfection of this means of reading thought will create a revolution for the better in all our social relations.

It’s overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure, democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel.

I think women want freedom. They want to be empowered. They want hope. They want love; they want all the things that I want, and I’m not afraid to say those things and act on them, and I think that’s why they identify with me.

The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world.

Children always turn to the light.

The United States is afraid of China; it is not a military threat to anyone and is the least aggressive of all the major military powers.

The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it. I see absolutely no point in pretending that it’s not going to happen. I’m fully confident that copyright, for instance, will no longer exist in 10 years.

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.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

I always try to put a seed of hope into people’s hearts. I’m not there to teach them doctrine necessarily, but to let them know that God is a good God, and has a plan for their lives. Hopefully, that will restore their faith, or draw them into faith.

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

Because of lack of moral principle, human life becomes worthless. Moral principle, truthfulness, is a key factor. If we lose that, then there is no future.

The purposes of the United States should not be doubted. The Security Council resolutions will be enforced – the just demands of peace and security will be met – or action will be unavoidable. And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power.

Unless one is able to live fully in the present, the future is a hoax.

Indians felt despondent about Indian governance. Changing that atmosphere of gloom was a very challenging task, and I faced many difficulties in rectifying the situation and bringing back confidence and hope.

In known history, nobody has had such capacity for altering the universe than the people of the United States of America. And nobody has gone about it in such an aggressive way.

Those 62 million girls who are not being educated around the world impact my life in Washington, D.C., in the United States of America. Because if we aren’t empowering and providing the skills and the resources to half of our population, then we’re not realizing our full potential as a society, as mankind.

Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today.

I always entertain great hopes.

The United States was seriously defeated in Iraq by Iraqi nationalism – mostly by nonviolent resistance. The United States could kill the insurgents, but they couldn’t deal with half a million people demonstrating in the streets.

There’s hope for everyone. That’s what makes the world go round.

The U.S. is off the spectrum in religious commitment.

My view is that at a younger age your optimism is more and you have more imagination etc. You have less bias.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

The progress of India is the destiny of one-sixth of humanity. And it will also mean a world more confident of its prosperity and more secure about its future.

In the late 1990s, some of the worst terrorist atrocities in the world were what the Turkish government itself called state terror, namely massive atrocities, 80 percent of the arms coming from the United States, millions of refugees, tens of thousands of people killed, hideous repression, that’s international terror, and we can go on and on.

I almost laughed about the Machiavellian plans of the presidents of the United States.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

Once we start to act, hope is everywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Then, and only then, hope will come.

The United States tyrannizes and pillages the globalized world with its political, economic, technological, and military might.

A lot of people, because of my contempt for the false consolations of religion, think of me as a symbolic public opponent of that in extremis. And sometimes that makes me feel a bit alarmed, to be the repository of other people’s hope.

We’ve gotta become the Martians. I’m a Martian – I tell you to become Martians. And we’ve gotta go to Mars and civilize Mars and build a whole civilization on Mars and then move out, 300 years from now into the universe. And when we do that, we have a chance of living forever.

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.

I have often been downcast but never in despair; I regard our hiding as a dangerous adventure, romantic and interesting at the same time. In my diary, I treat all the privations as amusing.

By disgracing and degrading the presidency of the United States, by fleeing the White House like a diseased cur, Richard Nixon broke the heart of the American Dream.

Is the Iranian record of intervention and terror worse than that of the U.S.?

The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

I do not look upon these United States as a finished product. We are still in the making.