One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.

Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.

The very word ‚secrecy‘ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

I wake up every morning in a house that was built by slaves, and I watch my daughters – two beautiful, intelligent black young women – playing with their dogs on the White House lawn. And because of Hillary Clinton, my daughters, and all our sons and daughters, now take for granted that a woman can be president of the United States.

The deceit and distortion surrounding the American invasion of Vietnam is by now so familiar that it has lost its power to shock.

I seated ugliness on my knee, and almost immediately grew tired of it.

Revolutions go not backward.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

In the ’70s, terrorism was much more serious, in that many more people got killed.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

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

I remember when I first came to Washington. For the first six months you wonder how the hell you ever got here. For the next six months you wonder how the hell the rest of them ever got here.

I briefly did therapy, but after a while, I realised it is just like a farmer complaining about the weather. You can’t fix the weather – you just have to get on with it.

When we tell the story of our own conversion, I would have it done with great sorrow, remembering what we used to be, and with great joy and gratitude, remembering how little we deserve these things.

The difference is too nice – Where ends the virtue or begins the vice.

All who think cannot but see there is a sanction like that of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious work of the world.

History, a distillation of rumour.

Whenever I think of the past, it brings back so many memories.

I graduated from the University of Delaware with a double major in history and political science.

A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren’t dependent on Washington doing something different.

It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

As unique as we all are, an awful lot of us want the same things. We want to shake up our current less-than-fulfilling lives. We want to be happier, more loving, forgiving and connected with the people around us.

If I make music and people hate it, you know, whatever. I’ll die someday, and one day, they will too.

On October 15, 1965, an estimated 70,000 people took part in large-scale anti-war demonstrations.

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

There’s no point in making predictions. It’s not worth speculating because nothing is set in stone and things change all the time in football. Today there are opportunities that no one knows if they will come round again in the future.

We usually lose today, because there has been a yesterday, and tomorrow is coming.

What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly – that is the first law of nature.

I love imperfections.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.

Littera scripta manet – ‚The written word will remain‘. That’s true, but it won’t be that much comfort to me.

Repeal the Missouri Compromise – repeal all compromises – repeal the Declaration of Independence – repeal all past history, you still cannot repeal human nature. It will be the abundance of man’s heart that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

The idea that women were oppressed throughout history is an appalling theory.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

There are still many causes worth sacrificing for, so much history yet to be made.

Life cannot be without relationship, but we have made it so agonizing and hideous by basing it on personal and possessive love. Can one love and yet not possess? You will find the true answer not in escape, ideals, beliefs but through the understanding of the causes of dependence and possessiveness.

I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.

We might as well die as to go on living like this.

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.

Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you’re doomed; you’re finished.

The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

They say miracles are past.

Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future, too.

The outer passes away; the innermost is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

If I shall exist eternally, how shall I exist tomorrow?

It’s in the difficult times that we’re growing and you can’t just rebuke everything hard. We’ve got to endure it and fight the good fight of faith and pass the test.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

The artists of the past who impressed me were the ones who really focused their work.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.

Glam really did plant seeds for a new identity. I think a lot of kids needed that – that sense of reinvention. Kids learned that however crazy you may think it is, there is a place for what you want to do and who you want to be.

It is difficult to violently suppress people in the long run, as the example of the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries has shown.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.