I have lived too long to cherish many illusions about the essential high-mindedness of men when brought into stark confrontation with the issue of control over their security, and their property interests.
I'm not going to Wall Street [after the presidency]. The amount of time that I'll be investing in issues is going to be high. But it'll be necessarily in a different capacity.
When you buy a used car, you kick the tires, you look at the odometer, you open up the hood. If you do not feel yourself an expert in automobile engines, you bring a friend who is. And you do this with something as unimportant as an automobile. But on the issues of the transcendent, of ethics, of morals, of the origins of the world, of the nature of human beings, on those issues should we not insist upon at least equally skeptical scrutiny?
They said, "You know, this issue doesn't seem to resignate with the people." And I said, you know something? Whether it resignates or not doesn't matter to me, because I stand for doing what's the right thing, and what the right thing is hearing the voices of people who work.
Once we got to know each other, we had such similar impulses. We saw in a similar way, and we developed a strong friendship. We would talk on the phone for hours, philosophically and theologically, about all of these issues.
Any politician who respects China's government should tell it openly what is in his heart. It is disrespectful to keep quiet about such issues - both vis-a-vis the government and the people concerned.
Health care has become a proxy for a broader set of issues about how much government should be involved in our economy, particularly coming off a huge economic crisis.
I think that I'm a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I'll tell you right now that I'm gonna think I'm a better political director than my political director.
Part of what attracted me to the village was it had a lot of parallels to contemporary issues. Like, fear and the way fear controls us. How the governing body of a town, or a nation, controls us through fear. They might mean well by it, but we are conditioned to be afraid of things. Fear of the unknown. Fear of terrorism. And it's unfortunate.
Great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if, under the influence of money or power, he neglect justice and virtue?
Spirits are not finely touched But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence But like a thrifty goddess she determines Herself the glory of a creditor,Both thanks and use.
I would not advise people who feel strongly or are concerned about some of the issues that have been raised during the course of the [president electing] campaign.
We have to deal with issues like inequality, we have deal with issues of economic dislocation, we have to deal with peoples fears that their children won't do as well as they have. The more aggressively and effectively we deal with those issues, the less those fears may channel themselves into counter-productive approaches that pit people against each other.