There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.
What is objectionable, what is dangerous about extremists is not that they are extreme, but that they are intolerant. The evil is not what they say about their cause, but what they say about their opponents.
The future is not a gift. It is an achievement.
I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil. Government belongs wherever evil needs an adversary and there are people in distress.
Some men see the world as it is and say ‘Why?’ I see the world as it could be and say, ‘Why not?’
The sharpest criticism often goes hand in hand with the deepest idealism and love of country.
Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves. What is equally true is that every community gets the kind of law enforcement it insists on.
While free markets tend to democratize a society, unfettered capitalism leads invariably to corporate control of government.
Change has its enemies.
There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of the comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.
This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
Each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.