Open-minded people tend to be interested in Buddhism because Buddha urged people to investigate things - he didn't just command them to believe.

Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it's worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.

Life is given to us, we earn it by giving it.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. 

Children need to get a high-quality education, avoid violence and the criminal-justice system, and gain jobs. But they deserve more. We want them to learn not only reading and math but fairness, caring, self-respect, family commitment, and civic duty.

Compromise is the easy option adopted by the inhabitants of the comfort zone.

We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. 

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. 

Intelligence is the application of knowledge.

With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone.

Throughout my career, I learned plenty about war on the battlefield, but I learned even more about the importance of finding peace. And that is what the State Department and U.S.A.I.D. do: prevent the wars that we can avoid so that we fight only the ones we must.