On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

I said that America’s role would be limited; that we would not put ground troops into Libya; that we would focus our unique capabilities on the front end of the operation, and that we would transfer responsibility to our allies and partners.

We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all.

It is possible to provide security against other ills, but as far as death is concerned, we men live in a city without walls.

Now, as a nation, we don’t promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That’s an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

America and Islam are not exclusive and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

A diplomatic solution that puts significant and verifiable constraints on Iran’s nuclear program represents the best and most sustainable chance to ensure that America, Israel, the entire Middle East will never be menaced by a nuclear-armed Iran.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you’re defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.

We are more often frightened than hurt; and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.

America is a country of inventors, and the greatest of inventors are the newspaper men.

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Since coming back from overseas, this is more of a foreign country than the places overseas. I don’t understand it. It’s like America has lost faith in rational thought.

The intelligent minority of this world will mark 1 January 2001 as the real beginning of the 21st century and the Third Millennium.

America is the greatest country in the world.

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass the test.

I have one yardstick by which I test every major problem – and that yardstick is: Is it good for America?

We are America, second to none, and we own the finish line. Don’t forget it.

I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe. I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear.

The glamour of it all! New York! America!

I don’t think anybody in America ought to be scared.

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.

We can’t allow the world’s worst leaders to blackmail, threaten, hold freedom-loving nations hostage with the world’s worst weapons.

Buddhism teaches us not to try to run away from suffering. You have to confront suffering. You have to look deeply into the nature of suffering in order to recognize its cause, the making of the suffering.

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the U.S. government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That’s all to the good.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

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.

Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America’s servicemen and women.

There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure.

I’m not frightened of appearing vulnerable.

In the wake of the events of 11 September 2001, it now seems clear that the shock of the attacks was exploited in America.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Oh yes, there’s lots of great food in America. But the fast food is about as destructive and evil as it gets. It celebrates a mentality of sloth, convenience, and a cheerful embrace of food we know is hurting us.

I will never relent in defending America – whatever it takes.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.

Of course I get hurt.

Because I believe in God and have faith in God, it doesn’t mean I am immortal. It doesn’t mean I am immune, as has been claimed. I am as scared as anyone of getting hurt, especially driving a Formula One car.

In Britain, like most of the developed world, stem-cell research is regarded as a great opportunity. America will be left behind if it doesn’t change policy.

It could be if I fight in front of one person or one million people. It’s still the same emotions.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

Laughter is America’s most important export.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow – that’s vulnerability.

I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.

The basis of optimism is sheer terror.

The best marriages are the ones where we can go out in the world and really put ourselves out there. A lot of times we’ll fail, and sometimes we’ll pull it off. But good marriages are when you can go home and know that your vulnerability will be honored as courage, and that you’ll find support.

The tragedy of America is that it entered all the wars with a consensus in favor of them, but within a defined period, the legitimacy of the war became a major domestic issue, with some people arguing that withdrawal was the only legitimate objective.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

Those who have a true understanding of America know that we have no desire for territorial expansion, for economic or other domination of other peoples. Such purposes are repugnant to our ideals of human freedom.

Organized crime in America takes in over forty billion dollars a year and spends very little on office supplies.

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

The magic of America is that we’re a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

War is the domain of physical exertion and suffering.

It was wonderful to find America, but it would have been more wonderful to miss it.

Americans… still believe in an America where anything’s possible – they just don’t think their leaders do.

Vulnerability is about showing up and being seen. It’s tough to do that when we’re terrified about what people might see or think.