It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don’t think anybody has held this job who hasn’t felt personally responsible for those being killed.

The old-fashioned idea is that responsibility falls upon those who borrow and lend. Money was not borrowed by campesinos, assembly plant workers, or slum-dwellers. The mass of the population gained little from borrowing, indeed often suffered grievously from its effects.

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

Intolerance is itself a form of violence and an obstacle to the growth of a true democratic spirit.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.

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.

So many killings of black men in my lifetime. The physical shock is astounding.

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.

Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart, don’t know how to laugh either.

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.

It means, people who are in high and responsible positions, if they go against righteousness, righteousness itself will get transformed into a destroyer.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

It sometimes makes people feel better about themselves, you know, to put other people down, or make fun of them, or maybe make mockery of their work and that doesn’t make me feel good at all.

We need someone with superb judgement in their own right because, yes, a president can hire the best advisors on Earth, but I guarantee you this: Five advisors will give five different opinions. And it is the president – and the president alone – who always makes the final call.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.

Man is fully responsible for his nature and his choices.

You never make fun of anybody with a club foot or a withered arm, but it’s open season on anybody who stutters.

Parentage is a very important profession, but no test of fitness for it is ever imposed in the interest of the children.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

Violence can succeed, as Americans know well from the conquest of the national territory. But at terrible cost. It can also provoke violence in response, and often does.

I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom.

Don’t blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.

With Benghazi, I don’t see anyone saying, ‚Hey look, I am overall responsible for this and therefore, I take responsibility for what happened. It’s my fault.‘ I haven’t heard that yet. Meanwhile, the other side of the coin, the Osama bin Laden raid, it seems everyone made that decision, and that’s just unbelievable to me.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it’s again not people who are intrinsically evil.

My speculation is that the U.S. does not want to establish the principle that it has to defer to some higher authority before carrying out the use of violence.

A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command make him.

I had never been in charge of anything. I’d always worked for someone. I worked for a furniture warehouse. I did masonry. I always had a boss yelling at me. So I’d never been in charge of an organization.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have.

Love is when the other person’s happiness is more important than your own.

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

A people do not throw their geniuses away. And if they are thrown away, it is our duty as artists and as witnesses for the future to collect them again for the sake of our children and, if necessary, bone by bone.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.

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.

Leadership is a choice, not a position.

The responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

Honor and shame from no condition rise. Act well your part: there all the honor lies.

Whenever you’re going through a tough time, generally, you become more compassionate, you become softer, you become more thoughtful, kinder. These are all spiritual qualities that will help you to align yourself with God and God consciousness rather than with a split fear-based consciousness.

We came into a broken world. And we’re the cleanup crew.

I have a collective sense of suffering.

If we could just find out who’s in charge, we could kill him.

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

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

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.

There are folks who now know black families – like the Johnsons on ‚Black-ish‘ or the folks on ‚Modern Family.‘ They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

The last thing I wanted to do was to be a wartime President.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

The Youth of a Nation are the trustees of posterity.

Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else.

You cannot share your life with a dog, as I had done in Bournemouth, or a cat, and not know perfectly well that animals have personalities and minds and feelings.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.