We live in a world that has narrowed into a neighborhood before it has broadened into a brotherhood.

Ours is a nation of laws: of citizens who live under them and for the citizens who enforce them. So, to a community in Ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, let me call once again for us to seek some understanding rather than simply holler at each other. Let’s seek to heal rather than to wound each other.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

We always live in an uncertain world. What is certain is that the United States will go forward over time.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be raised in a society where their only statues that exist are to you and your father.

Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.

We didn’t crumble after 9/11. We didn’t falter after the Boston Marathon. But we’re America. Americans will never, ever stand down. We endure. We overcome. We own the finish line.

No one can say, ‚I have dropped out – I am no longer in the system.‘ When you’re in prison, you’re even closer to the system: you feel it more, and you might be in there for whatever reason. You don’t transform the system as an absolute thing.

Though we may know Him by a thousand names, He is one and the same to us all.

I do not doubt that we would become more useful if we praised God more, and others would join us, for they would see that God has blessed us.

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.

Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.

We must rekindle the fire of idealism in our society.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate each other.

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Optimism comes less easily today, not because democracy is less vigorous, but because democracy’s enemies have refined their instruments of repression.

Defending peace is the duty of all.

If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen.

When a nation is filled with strife, then do patriots flourish.

That is what fame is, isn’t it? To get the world to fall in love with you.

The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

This world is but a canvas to our imagination.

I’m not interested in more political or cultural combat.

Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people.

Society is at odds with itself.

I have been on the road and visited numerous places and met people from all over the globe. I can say that it looks nearly the same everywhere I have been: The climate crisis is ignored by people in charge, despite the science being crystal clear.

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

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.

America is just downright mean.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

Drones overall will be more impactful than I think people recognize, in positive ways to help society.

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

Nothing can be more absurd than the practice that prevails in our country of men and women not following the same pursuits with all their strengths and with one mind, for thus, the state instead of being whole is reduced to half.

A war is a horrible thing, but it’s also a unifier of countries.

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

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress ‚suspects.‘

I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books.

I do not expect the Union to be dissolved – I do not expect the house to fall – but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.

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

Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that’s making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

Actors are one family over the entire world.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.

Society exists only as a mental concept; in the real world there are only individuals.

I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.

Mankind, the spirit of the earth, the synthesis of individuals and peoples, the paradoxical conciliation of the element with the whole, and of unity with multitude – all these are called Utopian, and yet they are biologically necessary.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.

The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a path to perfection. No, it is perfect at every moment, every sin already carries grace in it.