The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

I don’t see that my majority opinions are going to be undone.

Except for the title ‚father,‘ there is no title, including ‚vice president,‘ that I am more proud to wear than that of United States senator.

I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. That’s what I see. That’s the America I know!

History has proven that each generation of Howard graduates will forge the way forward for our country and our world.

My daughter doesn’t even get my humor. She’s like, ‚Um, no. I don’t get it, Dad. Mmm, no, not that one, Dad.‘

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

In fact men will fight for a superstition quite as quickly as for a living truth – often more so, since a superstition is so intangible you cannot get at it to refute it, but truth is a point of view, and so is changeable.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

It’s not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it’s the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

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.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

Where you live in the world should not determine whether you live in the world.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.

My mother never made me do anything for my brothers, like serve them. I think that’s an important lesson, especially for the Latino culture, because the women are expected to be the ones that serve and cook and whatever. Not in our family. Everybody was equal.

When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

I speak directly to the people, and I know that the people of California want to have better leadership. They want to have great leadership. They want to have somebody that will represent them. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican, young or old.

We’re in very bad trouble if we don’t understand the planet we’re trying to save.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

It’s different from being 21 and you think there’s endless amount of opportunities. At 33, the ending is much, much closer.

The label ‚liberal‘ or ‚conservative,‘ any – every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from ‚Iolanthe.‘ It goes, ‚Every gal and every boy that’s born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.‘ What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

I’m committed to the people of Gujarat. I will devote each and every moment to serve my people of Gujarat.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

People should not make me out to be like Jesus; I don’t walk on water.

Read with care, George Orwell’s diaries, from the years 1931 to 1949, can greatly enrich our understanding of how Orwell transmuted the raw material of everyday experience into some of his best-known novels and polemics.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

There is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

Any experience that touches you, in any particular way, is good. It can be a horrible experience.

Positional leaders ignore the fact that every person has hopes, dreams, desires, and goals of his own. And leaders must bring their vision and the aspirations of the people they lead together in a way that benefits everyone.

‚Thank you‘ is the best prayer that anyone could say. I say that one a lot. Thank you expresses extreme gratitude, humility, understanding.

Someone has to die in order that the rest of us should value life more.

The buck stops here!

Imagination is a poor matter when it has to part company with understanding.

They’re right to think that about me, because I’m the person most likely to sleep with my female fans, I genuinely love other women. And I think they know that.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

We live in ugly times.

We are not without empathetic terror when we open Pascal’s ‚Pensees‘ and read, ‚I am the great silent spaces between worlds.‘

With a tree, all the growth takes place at the growing tips. Humanity is exactly the same. All the growth takes place in the growing tip: among that one percent of the population. It’s made up of pioneers, the beginners. That’s where the action is.

Comedians are sociologists. We’re pointing out stuff that the general public doesn’t even stop to think about, looking at life in slow-motion and questioning everything we see.

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.