The first thing I would do would be to move forward with an agenda to make sure that we give D.C. the opportunity to elect its own representatives and have some political power on Capitol Hill.
Most people don't know what it's like to be poor, and to live in poverty. To live in a situation where everything around you - every opportunity is shut. You don't have anyone showing you how to rise above, you don't have any resources, and everyone around you is losing that battle too, then yeah, you want something that you have control over that makes you feel like you're running your brain for a minute.
I now began for the first time to envy those young cubs at the university who had fine scholars to tell them what was what; professors who had devoted their lives to mastering and focusing ideas in every branch of learning; who were eager to distribute the treasures they had gathered before they were overtaken by the night. But now I pity undergraduates, when I see what frivolous lives many of them lead in the midst of precious fleeting opportunity. After all, a man's Life must be nailed to a cross either of Thought or Action. Without work there is no play.
The means that heaven yields must be embraced, and not neglected; else, if heaven would, and we will not heaven's offer, we refuse the proffered means of succor and redress.
Wealth brings with it its own checks and balances. The basis of political economy is noninterference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a free and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile to the industrious, brave and persevering.
Every single one of you has something you're good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That's the opportunity an education can provide.
What we can do is to shape how that process of global integration proceeds, so that it's increasing opportunity for ordinary people, so that it's creating better jobs, so that we are strengthening protections for workers, so that we are addressing some of the environmental challenges that come with rapid growth.
I don't think actors should ever expect to get a role, because the disappointment is too great. You've got to think of things as an opportunity. An audition's an opportunity to have an audience.