We don’t have to let extremists define us.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

The good of the people is the greatest law.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

Give a boy address and accomplishments and you give him the mastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Woman’s at best a contradiction still.

Let others lead small lives, but not you. Let others argue over small things, but not you. Let others cry over small hurts, but not you. Let others leave their future in someone else’s hands, but not you.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

If you’re not producing as much as you consume, or perhaps a little more, then clearly we cannot use the big organization of our society for the purpose of keeping you alive, because your life does not benefit us, and it can’t be of very much use to yourself.

If people lose faith in their government, the result is the same whether or not the loss of confidence is justified.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

The world has grown suspicious of anything that looks like a happily married life.

No, I’m not a French designer either. I’m from nowhere. I’m a European, old European is all I am.

I’m not a reality-TV kind of guy. But it’s almost like we’re living in a reality show. Every day in this country, everybody keeps worrying about the deterioration of America, and it’s like a big reality show.

The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

I don’t know who I would have been if I never watched MotoGP.

I think it’s important as an artist to never forget where you’re from.

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.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

I think who you are in school really sticks with you. I don’t ever feel like the cool kid at the party, ever. It’s like, ‚Smile and be nice to everybody, because you were not invited to be here.‘

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

People who bowl vote. Bowlers are not the cultural elite.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

I don’t have space to enter into the examples or the history of this, so I’m left with having to make the bold statement that culture is extinct.

Leaders in all spheres who are living with HIV should be encouraged, not coerced, to lead by example and disclose their HIV status.

Governments are not representative. They have their own power, serving segments of the population that are dominant and rich.

Lady Gaga is my name. If you know me, and you call me Stefani, you don’t really know me at all.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

I believe that if you show people the problems and you show them the solutions they will be moved to act.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

I don’t blame the average seventeen-year-old punk-rock kid for calling me a sellout. I understand that. And maybe when they grow up a little bit, they’ll realize there’s more things to life than living out your rock & roll identity so righteously.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

You can use your real identity, or you can use phone numbers for something like WhatsApp, and pseudonyms for something like Instagram. But in any of those you’re not just sharing and consuming content, you are also building relationships with people and building an understanding of people.

A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.

I believe that God has put gifts and talents and ability on the inside of every one of us. When you develop that and you believe in yourself and you believe that you’re a person of influence and a person of purpose, I believe you can rise up out of any situation.

I’d rather be a victor than a victim.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

We have entered an age in which education is not just a luxury permitting some men an advantage over others. It has become a necessity without which a person is defenseless in this complex, industrialized society. We have truly entered the century of the educated man.

A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.

Americans are apocalyptic by nature. The reason why is that we’ve always had so much, so we live in deadly fear that people are going to take it away from us.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

The smarter the journalists are, the better off society is. For to a degree, people read the press to inform themselves – and the better the teacher, the better the student body.

I try never to wear my own clothes, I pretend I’m someone else.

I seem to be getting a lot of things pushed my way that are strong women. It’s like people see Hackers and they send me offers to play tough women with guns, the kind who wear no bra and a little tank top. I’d like to play strong women who are also very feminine.

We all have possibilities we don’t know about. We can do things we don’t even dream we can do.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

The moral disapprobation of society has an impact on behavior in societies.

Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.

What I can say is that all my characters are searching for their souls, because they are my mirrors. I’m someone who is constantly trying to understand my place in the world, and literature is the best way that I found in order to see myself.