Small acts of decency ripple in ways we could never imagine.

Don't give in to cynicism. It is a toxic spiritual state.

Stay faithful in things large and taking on the world, but stay faithful in those things small - because remember it's the small things, the size of a mustard seed, that ultimately moves mountains.

These false barriers that we've erected of space and race, all these illusions that we've allowed to infect us like toxins, we've got to rid ourselves of that. We are a better nation when we are ultimately united in a common purpose and a common cause.

I live in Brick Towers, a public housing project in Newark's Central Ward. I moved in when the projects were privately owned by a man who the residents and I believed was a grade A slumlord.

You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation.

This is our history - from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges - our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation's infrastructure.

You were not built for comfort and convenience. You were built to overcome.

It takes too much energy to hate.

No matter who you are, no matter what your color, creed, how you choose to pray or who you choose to love, that if you are an American - first generation or fifth - one who is willing to work hard, play by the rules and apply your God-given talents - that you should be able to find a job that pays the bills.

I don't know what God has planned for me or you or anyone, but I do know that in darkness, you discover an indistinguishable light.

You are more beautiful than you realize, stronger than you know, more powerful than you could imagine.

You've got to be one that, wherever you are, like a flower, you've got to blossom where you're planted. You cannot eliminate darkness. You cannot banish it by cursing darkness. The only way to get rid of darkness is light and to be the light yourself.

If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption, or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse.

Patriotism is love of country. But you can't love your country without loving your countrymen and countrywomen. We don't always have to agree, but we must empower each other, we must find the common ground, we must build bridges across our differences to pursue the common good.

People have the right to protest - that's what democracy is all about. I have no problem with people exercising their democratic rights.

If it is not possible for me to go somewhere and to be willing to encounter people with different views, then I'm really not doing my job.

I'm actually - believe it or not, for an academic - an aural learner.

There was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

My dad was not someone who you would strike with a billy club and he wouldn't strike back. It just wasn't in him.

That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community.

I would even say that my parents, and their friends in our community, thought of education as a kind of armor against racism.

You go to war when there is a security threat, and Saddam Hussein was seen as a threat to our interests and our security.

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.