“It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on.” 

“It is hard to make government representative when it is also remote.”

“For fear of the newspapers politicians are dull, and at last they are too dull even for the newspapers.” 

“He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative.” 

“America is the only country ever founded on a creed.” – “What is America?”

“Progress should mean that we are always changing the world to fit the vision, instead we are always changing the vision.”

“Self-denial is the test and definition of self-government.” 

“The modern city is ugly not because it is a city but because it is not enough of a city, because it is a jungle, because it is confused and anarchic, and surging with selfish and materialistic energies.”

“I think the oddest thing about the advanced people is that, while they are always talking about things as problems, they have hardly any notion of what a real problem is.”

I've been doing American auditions for a while, and it always felt sort of like sending these audition tapes off into the ether. So just hearing anything back from anyone was kind of startling.

Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in.

There is something strangely inconsistent about a nation and a press that would praise you when you say, ‘Be nonviolent toward Jim Clark,’ but will curse and damn you when you say, ‘Be nonviolent toward little brown Vietnamese children.’ There is something wrong with that press.

One of the greatest casualties of the war in Vietnam is the Great Society… shot down on the battlefield of Vietnam.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed; We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal

Now everyone knows that the labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to undreamed of levels of production. Those who attack labor forget these simple truths, but history remembers them.

No individual or nation can stand out boasting of being independent. We are interdependent.

Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers.

A constitution is the arrangement of magistrates in a state.

As individuals we can influence our own families. Our families can influence our communities and our communities can influence our nations.

I am by heritage a Jew, by citizenship a Swiss, and by makeup a human being, and only a human being, without any special attachment to any state or national entity whatsoever.

Most poor people live in the poorest countries.

One of the statistics that always amazes me is the approval of the Chinese government, not elected, is over 80 percent. The approval of the U.S. government, fully elected, is 19 percent. Well, we elected these people and they didn't elect those people. Isn't it supposed to be different? Aren't we supposed to like the people that we elected?

Netscape was able to get the government working on its behalf.

Well, no one gives aid to Zimbabwe through the Mugabe government.