It is our future on the line, and we must at least have a say in it.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

Stupidity has a knack of getting its way.

If you are ever in doubt as to whether to kiss a pretty girl, always give her the benefit of the doubt.

I never knew whether to pity or congratulate a man on coming to his senses.

People will visit Mars, they will settle mars, and we should because it’s cool.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

My parents pretty much realized that I would do whatever I wanted, and that was it, really.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

On one of my last days at school, the headmaster said I would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. That was quite a startling prediction, but in some respects, he was right on both counts!

I can never say ‚why‘ about anything I do. I suppose I can say ‚how‘ and ‚when‘ and ‚what.‘ But ‚why‘ is impenetrable to me.

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

The man who can dominate a London dinner-table can dominate the world.

Those who cry out that the government should ‚do something‘ never even ask for data on what has actually happened when the government did something, compared to what actually happened when the government did nothing.

A president has an inescapable responsibility to provide direction: What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to prevent? Why? To do that, he has to both analyze and reflect.

Power is poison. Its effect on Presidents had always been tragic.

If you want to have sustained joy, you have to not only make sure that you think right, but you also have to make decisions now that are going to guarantee some joy in the future.

I can make more generals, but horses cost money.

The will is a beast of burden. If God mounts it, it wishes and goes as God wills; if Satan mounts it, it wishes and goes as Satan wills; Nor can it choose its rider… the riders contend for its possession.

There was a time Michael Jackson couldn’t get his video on MTV because he was considered to be ‚urban.‘ The Michael Jackson. So I literally have to be the Michael Jackson of apparel in order to break down the doors for everyone who will come after I’m gone, after I’m dead.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.

What we won when all of our people united must not be lost in suspicion and distrust and selfishness and politics. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as president.

Chaotic action is preferable to orderly inaction.

Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.

Presumptuous for me to say, but at least – at a minimum – I’ve been able to influence the direction of the Democratic Party on foreign policy. And I’ve been relatively – presumptuous to say – relatively successful legislatively in the Senate, being able to win a lot of Republican friends, and being able to cross the aisle.

If you’re a quarterback, you want everything on your shoulders. You want to be the one to make the decisions.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

I desire no future that will break the ties with the past.

He only employs his passion who can make no use of his reason.

It’s a question of whether we’re going to go forward into the future, or past to the back.

It’s not called quitting if you quit while you ahead. It’s about being aware and being strategic enough to know that you got to get out the pool at some point. You got to put your clothes back on and dry off.

My justification is that most people my age spend a lot of time thinking about what they’re going to do for the next five or ten years. The time they spend thinking about their life, I just spend drinking.

If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being real they’re real for you whether they’re real or not.

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

You tell me: Can you live crushed under the weight of the present? Without a memory of the past and without the desire to look ahead to the future by building something, a future, a family? Can you go on like this? This, to me, is the most urgent problem that the Church is facing.

People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.

My friends ask me if I want more kids, and I always say yes, I want more; it’s the best thing you can have in your life.

For my career, I wouldn’t go racing if I didn’t enjoy it. I still need to have my say, and not just get put with a team and get told to deal with it.

If you’re going to change things, you have to be with the people who hold the levers.

Anything important is never left to the vote of the people. We only get to vote on some man; we never get to vote on what he is to do.

God is more interested in your future and your relationships than you are.

The issues that cross a president’s desk are never easy. The easy questions don’t even get to the president.

Beautiful sentences pop into my head. Beautiful sentences that aren’t always absolutely accurate. Then, I have to choose between the beautiful sentence and being absolutely accurate. It can be a difficult choice.

Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

You and I are stuck with the necessity of taking the worst of two evils or none at all. So-I’m taking the immature Democrat as the best of the two. Nixon is impossible.

In any decision for action, when you have to make up your mind what to do, there is always a ‚should‘ involved, and this cannot be worked out from, ‚If I do this, what will happen?‘ alone.

For 25 years countless people have come to the U.N. climate conferences begging our world leaders to stop emissions and clearly that has not worked as emissions are continuing to rise. So I will not beg the world leaders to care for our future. I will instead let them know change is coming whether they like it or not.

The colored folks been singing it and playing it just like I’m doin‘ now, man, for more years than I know. I got it from them.

You can never really live anyone else’s life, not even your child’s. The influence you exert is through your own life, and what you’ve become yourself.

The Bible says that Christians are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. On the job, in the grocery store, even among unsaved friends and family members, God’s people are there to bring seasoning to an unsavory situation.

The value of beauty and inspiration is very much underrated, no question. But I want to be clear: I’m not trying to be anyone’s savior. I’m just trying to think about the future and not be sad.

A president either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a moment.

To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be or you don’t be.

Being acknowledged for your work is always a great accomplishment, whether it’s people in my city, kids in the street, all the way up to the Grammys.

A leader who doesn’t hesitate before he sends his nation into battle is not fit to be a leader.

In crises the most daring course is often safest.

When I did ‚Bird,‘ it was a surprise to some people, first because I wasn’t in it and second because most of the films I’d been doing were cop movies or westerns or adventure films, so to be doing one about Charlie Parker, who was a great influence on American music, was a great thrill for me.

To prefer evil to good is not in human nature; and when a man is compelled to choose one of two evils, no one will choose the greater when he might have the less.