The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.

It’s overwhelmingly in the self-interest of the United States of America to have a secure, democratic friend, a strategic partner like Israel.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

The main message of Climate Revolution is that climate change is caused by the rotten financial system we’ve got, designed to create poverty and rip off any profits for a small amount of rich people. Meanwhile, it destroys the earth.

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Why was the amendment, expressly declaring the right of the people to exclude slavery, voted down? Plainly enough now, the adoption of it would have spoiled the niche for the Dred Scott decision.

Any unarmed people are slaves, or are subject to slavery at any given moment.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

I want to go down in the history books with what I’ve achieved.

I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn’t give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.

For the record, our democracy is revered around the world. And free elections are the best way on Earth to choose our leaders. This is how we elected John F. Kennedy; Ronald Reagan; two George Bushes; Bill Clinton; and Barack Obama. It has worked for decades.

I have written too much history to have faith in it; and if anyone thinks I’m wrong, I am inclined to agree with him.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

History will point out some of the things I did wrong and some of the things I did right.

The Holy Roman Empire is neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It’ll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn’t been reusable.

Empire and liberty.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

Things have never been more like the way they are today in history.

We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed to forget the feuds of a thousand years.

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.

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

The example that America knows how to govern itself is one of the compelling aspects of our national security.

If you look at the history of Notre Dame, if you hire a coach who’s been successful at another college program, they’re going to be ultra successful at Notre Dame because the talent will always be there.

America has fought five wars since 1945 and has gained its objectives in only one of them, the Gulf War.

I feel like I’m too busy writing history to read it.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Here in America, we don’t let our differences tear us apart. Not here. Because we know that our greatness comes from when we appreciate each other’s strengths, when we learn from each other, when we lean on each other, because in this country, it’s never been each person for themselves. No, we’re all in this together. We always have been.

The fact is, with every friendship you make, and every bond of trust you establish, you are shaping the image of America projected to the rest of the world. That is so important. So when you study abroad, you’re actually helping to make America stronger.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

Great minds are related to the brief span of time during which they live as great buildings are to a little square in which they stand: you cannot see them in all their magnitude because you are standing too close to them.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won’t make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa – and it’s about getting a balance.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

He who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves and, under a just God, cannot long retain it.

We should not look down on our first ancestors.

The men and women of Afghanistan are building a nation that is free, and proud, and fighting terror – and America is honored to be their friend.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Every writer has his writing technique – what he can and can’t do to describe something like war or history. I’m not good at writing about those things, but I try because I feel it is necessary to write that kind of thing.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

This is not Johnson’s war. This is America’s war. If I drop dead tomorrow, this war will still be with you.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

I can express all my views on the slavery question by quotations from Henry Clay.

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

If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.

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

On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.

Here’s what I believe, I think the FBI is the premier law enforcement agency in the history of the world but i think there was some bad apples over there.

Capitalism has proven to be the only system that works, but the problem with capitalism is that extreme wealth ends up in the hands of a few people.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

Of all the inventions of humans, the computer is going to rank near or at the top as history unfolds and we look back. It is the most awesome tool that we have ever invented. I feel incredibly lucky to be at exactly the right place in Silicon Valley, at exactly the right time, historically, where this invention has taken form.

No people come into possession of a culture without having paid a heavy price for it.

Here in England, everyone’s a pop star, innit, whereas in America they believe in the term artist.