Sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win.

In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection.

All of us should be on guard against beliefs that flatter ourselves. At the very least, we should check such beliefs against facts.

Baldwin thought Europe was a bore, and Chamberlain thought it was only a greater Birmingham.

It didn’t even occur to me that I’m the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music.

I have had fun being who I became, so to speak.

Nowadays, politically, everybody is promising everything. That’s the only way you can get elected.

Love is a state of Being. Your love is not outside; it is deep within you. You can never lose it, and it cannot leave you. It is not dependent on some other body, some external form.

The proper study of Mankind is Man.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

To appreciate the noble is a gain which can never be torn from us.

One lesson you better learn if you want to be in politics is that you never go out on a golf course and beat the President.

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.

We feel and know that we are eternal.

I think, under President Obama, who was a really bright guy – I didn’t agree with a lot of his politics – but we got to the point internationally where our friends didn’t trust us. They were confused. And our enemies didn’t quite respect us.

The free soul is rare, but you know it when you see it – basically because you feel good, very good, when you are near or with them.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

Actually, to be an effective person politically in this country, I think you have to be thirty or over, and also you have to be rich, well-placed, you have to be close to power. And I don’t think that young people, because they look young, can do much, as I think they are counterproductive.

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Whatever one of us blames in another, each one will find in his own heart.

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

Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.

I do all the evil I can before I learn to shun it? Is it not enough to know the evil to shun it? If not, we should be sincere enough to admit that we love evil too well to give it up.

My affection for Taiwan… is witnessed by everyone. My wife is Taiwanese and I am a son-in-law of Taiwan. I am half Taiwanese.

It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are… than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.

Some men never feel small, but these are the few men who are.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

There will be no whitewash in the White House.

The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore.

Socialism is the same as Communism, only better English.

No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor.

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

Politics is applesauce.

I’m afraid that people who know me as I usually am will discover I have another side, a better and finer side. I’m afraid they’ll mock me, think I’m ridiculous and sentimental and not take me seriously. I’m used to not being taken seriously, but only the ‚light-hearted‘ Anne is used to it and can put up with it; the ‚deeper‘ Anne is too weak.

Sometimes I’m a bit under-aggressive and sometimes a bit over. But I think it’s good to have both.

Much publishing is done through politics, friends, and natural stupidity.

This is not a showman’s job. I will not step out of character.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

Don’t compare yourself with other people; compare yourself with who you were yesterday.

If you were to ask me to choose between democratic values and wealth, power, prosperity and fame, I will very easily and without any doubt choose democratic values.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motives, everything he does becomes tainted.

I more fear what is within me than what comes from without.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

I can simply tell you that since I was a kid, I didn’t like to look like anyone else.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

It seems like we wake up and it’s a race until you get to bed. It gets to you after a while and you think, ‚What the hell am I doing?‘

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

I’m perpetually lonely.

When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.

I’m the most stubborn person I know.

I think America has always been polarized.

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

We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.

Before I went to jail, I was active in politics as a member of South Africa’s leading organization – and I was generally busy from 7 A.M. until midnight. I never had time to sit and think.

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.

Vanity is but the surface.

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.