What I’m asking for is hard. It’s easier to be cynical; to accept that change isn’t possible, and politics is hopeless, and to believe that our voices and actions don’t matter. But if we give up now, then we forsake a better future.

Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.

When you tell a recruiter that you’re almost 300 pounds and you want to be a SEAL, it doesn’t go too well. I got hung up on a lot.

A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood.

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.

In a time not distant, it will be possible to flash any image formed in thought on a screen and render it visible at any place desired. The perfection of this means of reading thought will create a revolution for the better in all our social relations.

Nothing could make me forget what the Reagan years had actually been like.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

I hoped to be able to write a novel which would enable me to live on it while I wrote the next.

It’s never paid to bet against America. We come through things, but its not always a smooth ride.

Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and importance of the question.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.

I don’t think I ever thought of myself as Superman. But there were people who thought of me that way, and maybe I believed them a little.

Experience has shown how deeply the seeds of war are planted by economic rivalry and social injustice.

I’m highly political. I spend an awful lot of time in the U.S. trying to influence decision-makers. But I don’t feel in tune with British politics.

I have a reputation for taking on governors a lot more powerful than me.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

Imagine your family finally making it from nothing to something, and finally getting things going, and finally buying a beautiful house and taking care of your children – and the next day, it’s completely all gone. Zero. Boom. Flat broke. So that’s when I had to man up.

If… many influential people have failed to understand, or have just forgotten, what we were up against in the Cold War and how we overcame it, they are not going to be capable of securing, let alone enlarging, the gains that liberty has made.

When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

No matter how bad any situation, cynicism has no positive impact. Watching the news, you might notice that cynicism and victimhood often seem to go hand-in-hand, but not for veterans.

If some people have the belief or view that the Dalai Lama has some miracle power, that’s totally nonsense.

Life is a journey. When we stop, things don’t go right.

It must be quite mysterious to some people why I bother to carry on. Because, you know, I don’t sell that many records.

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it – not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.

Anything you really want, you can attain, if you really go after it.

There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors… I mean it.

Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.

Nothing is void of God, his work is everywhere his full of himself.

A lot of dumb pictures have made a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to be anything cinema students will revel over in the future.

Even people on the liberal side are starting to worry about going off a fiscal cliff.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.

When Hillary served in the Senate, I saw her work day and night as a member of the Armed Services Committee – working with Republicans and Democrats to keep our military strong and protect our troops and their families.

A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

I have always been pushed by the negative. The apparent failure of a play sends me back to my typewriter that very night, before the reviews are out. I am more compelled to get back to work than if I had a success.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

I don’t think I would run for president.

People define Christianity differently. I think a large portion of our population are Christians, they’re not all growing in their faith, they’re not all active, but I believe that a lot of people believe in Jesus and believe that he is their Lord and Savior.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.

A President cannot always be popular.

It’s much easier to be successful than it is to be relevant. The tricks won’t keep you relevant. Tricks might keep you popular for a while, but in all honesty, I don’t know how U2 will stay relevant. I know we’ve got a future. I know we can fill stadiums. And yet with every record, I think, ‚Is this it? Are we still relevant?‘

Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It’s basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it’s wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.

I don’t think I’ve ever been an agnostic. I’ve always thought there’s a superior power, that this is not the real world and that there’s a world to come.

I was a housewife, so I learned to write in times off, and I don’t think I ever gave it up, though there were times when I was very discouraged because I began to see that the stories I was writing were not very good, that I had a lot to learn, and that it was a much, much harder job than I had expected.

I don’t believe in pessimism. If something doesn’t come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it’s going to rain, it will.

The way to see by Faith is to shut the Eye of Reason.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.

This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.

Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

To believe in God is impossible not to believe in Him is absurd.

This is no time for ease and comfort. It is time to dare and endure.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.