Their Quotes

The American people on the ground need a clearer, stronger, Lyndon B. Johnson-type voice from their president. Obama has that voice. It has to be used.

We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.

People are like stained - glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.

I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?

There are lots of people who mistake their imagination for their memory.

Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life. Half of them can't find the work they studied for, or any work at all. So here's the question: Without a change in leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?

In order to fix Social Security, we must restructure it so that we continue to provide for our Nation's seniors that are approaching retirement age, but allow for younger taxpayers to invest a portion of their Social Security taxes in private accounts.

The American people I talk to don't spend every moment thinking, 'How can I tax my neighbor more than they're being taxed?' They say, 'How can I get a good job? How can my kids get good jobs? How can seniors have a confidence in their future when they know that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are bankrupt?'

There are old heads in the world who cannot help me by their example or advice to live worthily and satisfactorily to myself; but I believe that it is in my power to elevate myself this very hour above the common level of my life.

But there's no substitute for a full-time dad. Dads who are fully engaged with their kids overwhelmingly tend to produce children who believe in themselves and live full lives.

People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.

My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced.

There are men so philosophical that they can see humor in their own toothaches. But there has never lived a man so philosophical that he could see the toothache in his own humor.

Elegance is not the prerogative of those who have just escaped from adolescence, but of those who have already taken possession of their future.

The genius, wit, and the spirit of a nation are discovered by their proverbs.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

I was very pushed to look a certain way and act a certain way, and it wasn't me, but I played by their rules to get my foot in the door.

If our soldiers are not overburdened with money, it is not because they have a distaste for riches; if their lives are not unduly long, it is not because they are disinclined to longevity.

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts.

I read less and less. I have not forgiven books for their failure to tell me the truth and make me happy.

Heights by great men reached and kept were not obtained by sudden flight but, while their companions slept, they were toiling upward in the night.

Men create gods after their own image, not only with regard to their form but with regard to their mode of life.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

Let me tell you the polls that count, and those are the polls a couple of weeks before the election. That's when the pollsters worry about holding onto their credibility. Those are the polls that everybody remembers.

Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.

What Democratic congressmen do to their women staffers, Republican congressmen do to the country.

I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses.

Great men are like eagles, and build their nest on some lofty solitude.

Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion.

Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes.