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.

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.

I’ve never seen America as an imperialist or colonialist or meddling country.

At the age of 6, a teacher full of ambitions, who taught in the small public school of Biran, convinced my family that I should travel to Santiago de Cuba to accompany my older sister who would enter a highly prestigious convent school. Including me was a skill of that very teacher from the little school in Biran.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

If the United States loses the economic weapons of control, it is very much weakened.

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 list of U.S. vetoes at the Security Council to protect Israeli aggression and occupation is huge.

My style influences my music and everything around me.

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.

Nothing is so strongly fortified that it cannot be taken by money.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

Character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion.

If I’m going to get you to do stuff, I need to lead you. I can’t just order you to do it.

Power over a man’s subsistence is power over his will.

The idea that putting Americans ‚first‘ requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

Leadership is influence.

I don’t think that experience is a very useful or convincing attribute for a sensible foreign policy. Henry Kissinger had a lot of experience.

It is wise to persuade people to do things and make them think it was their own idea.

When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible.

Diana Ross is a big inspiration to all of us. We all grew up watching everything about her – her mike placement, her grace, her style and her class.

I don’t think the Christian Right dominates America in the way some in the media believe they do.

If you leave the smallest corner of your head vacant for a moment, other people’s opinions will rush in from all quarters.

I feel like I’m changing pop culture.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

Most foreign policies that history has marked highly, in whatever country, have been originated by leaders who were opposed by experts.

A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle.

Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion is.

When you find a guy who is powerful, a big father figure, you latch onto him immediately.

It is my view that we cannot conduct foreign policy at the extremes.

If we go on your iPhone and go to the dictionary and look up ‚humble,‘ 80 per cent of the definition is negative. It’s a controlling word. It’s a way to control the masses and to control the sheep.

The wicked leader is he who the people despise. The good leader is he who the people revere. The great leader is he who the people say, ‚We did it ourselves.‘

My mother was a powerful influence. She made me toe the line. If I didn’t have a perfect report card, she showed her disappointment.

I believe that the primary role of the government is to protect people and not run their lives. You used to be able to believe that in the Democratic Party.

People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.

If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don’t say, ‚You don’t know how to use the English language,‘ or ‚How could you make that argument?‘ It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.

We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.

Jack Kerouac influenced me quite a bit as a writer… in the Arab sense that the enemy of my enemy was my friend.

My mother, I suppose, is still a main figure in my life because her life was so sad and unfair, and she so brave, but also because she was determined to make me into the Sunday-school-recitation little girl I was, from the age of seven or so, fighting not to be.

I realized the power of hip-hop. I realized how influential this music and this culture are.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

I think the personal relationships I established mattered in terms of what I was able to get done. And I did bring women’s issues to the center of our foreign policy.

Let me be absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under a McCain administration. It will be a strong friend of Israel’s under an Obama administration. So that policy is not going to change.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

The American temptation is to believe that foreign policy is a subdivision of psychiatry.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

Standing in support of children is something we should all be able to get behind, regardless of party affiliation.

The money in politics is a cash cow for the media.

People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.

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

I don’t think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.

Withdrawal of American troops must be a unilateral act, as the invasion of Vietnam by the American government was a unilateral act in the first place.

For me, the Immaculate Conception is the feast of ‚passive action,‘ the action that functions simply by the transmission through us of divine energy. Purity, in spite of outward appearances, is essentially an active virtue, because it concentrates God in us and on those who are subject to our influence.

Four hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

People that’s in power – the central banks, these fiat currencies that are traded globally – they got influence over the messaging and the narrative in the media.

The influence of a mother upon the lives of her children cannot be measured. They know and absorb her example and attitudes when it comes to questions of honesty, temperance, kindness, and industry.

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.

I believe in that old adage that ‚as goes California, so goes the country.‘