Not until my fourteenth or fifteenth year did I begin to come across the word 'Jew,' with any frequency, partly in connection with political discussions.... For the Jew was still characterized for me by nothing but his religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I maintained my rejection of religious attacks in this case as in others. Consequently, the tone, particularly that of the Viennese anti-Semitic press, seemed to me unworthy of the cultural tradition of a great nation.
It is my judgment that had I spent the first two years trying to get a single-payer system, all those folks who now have health insurance that didn't have it would still be uninsured. And those are millions of people whose lives are impacted right now.
It is this world, a world where cruise ships throw away more food in a day than most residents of Port-au-Prince see in a year, where white folks' greed runs a world in need, apartheid in one hemisphere, apathy in another hemisphere...That's the world! On which hope sits!
But it's precisely in this cold, loathsome half-despair, half-belief, in this deliberate burying of yourself underground for forty years out of sheer pain, in this assiduously constructed, and yet somewhat dubious hopelessness, in all this poision of unfulfilled desires turned inward, this fever of vacillations, of resolutions adopted for eternity, and of repentances a moment later that you find the very essence of that strange, sharp pleasure.
Present global culture is a kind of arrogant newcomer. It arrives on the planetary stage following four and a half billion years of other acts, and after looking about for a few thousand years declares itself in possession of eternal truths. But in a world that is changing as fast as ours, this is a prescription for disaster. No nation, no religion, no economic system, no body of knowledge, is likely to have all the answers for our survival. There must be many social systems that would work far better than any now in existence. In the scientific tradition, our task is to find them.
Remain strong in your faith, as you were in former years. In this faith, in its close-knit unity our people to-day goes straight forward on its way and no power on earth will avail to stop it.
You've got to be taught, to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught, from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,
You've got to be carefully taught.
The very first time I had Whitney Houston on my show, however many years ago, I thought, "You are 'the voice.'" You are the voice, that was my name for you.
America is much less violent than it was 20, 30 years ago, and immigration is much less a problem than it was not just 20, 30 years ago, but when I came in as president.
A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity "on a square yard of space.
A single swallow, it is said, devours ten millions of insects every year. The supplying of these insects I take to be a signal instance of the Creator's bounty in providing for the lives of His creatures.
It takes approximately forty years for innovative thought to be incorporated into mainstream thought. I expect and hope that orthomolecular medicine, within the next five to ten years, will cease to be a specialty in medicine and that all physicians will be using nurition as an essential tool in treating disease.
I think it's really important to enlarge the issue behind abortion. I have been serving for over two decades and I have seen year in and year out largely the Republicans voting against women's contraception, family planning.
I want something else; a different system entirely. One not seen on this earth for thousands of years. If ever. Democratic Womanism. Notice how this word has "man" right in the middle of it? That's one reason I like it. He is right there, front and center. But he is surrounded. I want to vote and work for a way of life that honors the feminine.
[Much] as war attracts me and fascinates my mind with its tremendous situations, I feel more deeply every year . . . what vile and wicked folly and barbarism it all is.