I would put our legislative and foreign policy accomplishments in our first two years against any president - with the possible exceptions of Johnson, FDR, and Lincoln - just in terms of what we've gotten done in modern history. But, you know, but when it comes to the economy, we've got a lot more work to do. And we're gonna keep on at it.
I have a habit of comparing the phraseology of communiques . . . noting a certain similarity of words, a certain similarity of optimism . . . and a certain similarity in the lack of practical results during the ensuring years.
In my life, there have been people that I was convinced would be around forever, and yet, somehow they managed to drift away after a couple of years. Likewise there have been people who have begun as casual acquaintances but become more important with each passing year.
With respect to Syria, we are going to continue to work as we have over the last five, six years to push towards a political transition and settlement.
In earlier years, a lesser effort produced literally dozens of comparable opportunities. It is difficult to be objective about the causes for such diminution of one's own productivity. Three factors that seem apparent are: (1) a somewhat changed market environment; (2) our increased size; and (3) substantially more competition.
... the more I learned, the more conscious did I become of the fact that I was ridiculous. So that for me my years of hard work at the university seem in the end to have existed for the sole purpose of demonstrating and proving to me, the more deeply engrossed I became in my studies, that I was an utterly absurd person
Death can only be profitable: there's no need to eat, drink, pay taxes, offend people, and since a person lies in a grave for hundreds or thousands of years, if you count it up the profit turns out to be enormous.
I want to leave an album behind that is classic, that people in 50 years will refer to and pass on to their children. An album that you never bored of.
He was handsome then if never before, bound for one of those immortal moments which come so radiantly that their remembered light is enough to see by for years.
We need to throw the resources at this that are necessary. But like I say, we are not spending money. I mean, if we buy these assets intelligently, the United States Treasury will make money. I mean, it's borrowing money. It's just a few percent a year.
It looks like it’s wasting time, but literature is actually the ultimate time-saver - because it gives us access to a range of emotions and events that it would take you years, decades, millennia to try to experience directly. Literature is the greatest reality simulator - a machine that puts you through infinitely more situations than you can ever directly witness.
Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty. ... The global wave of democracy has barely reached the Arab states. For too long, many people in that region have been victims and subjects. They deserve to be active citizens.