Politics

Our Founders rejected both a radical individualism that makes no room for others, and the dreary collectivism that crushes the individual. They gave us instead a society where individual freedom is anchored in communities.

What most of us recognized in South Africa, at the very last moment, was just how much we needed one another. We realized that violent confrontation promised only destruction and a long life of shared misery.

They discovered that being 'tough' was not so much about going to war, but about choosing to avoid it.

The world needs a leading nation, or group of nations, that can reassure, inspire hope, and offer fresh perspectives and new directions.

The best commencement speech I can give you is: We broke it. But here's the good news — you fix it, and it's going to be a heck of a lot of fun.

The positions I am about to describe are not only exalted and high paying; they also require little or no work, experience, training or knowledge. Thus they are exceptionally well suited to graduating seniors.

There is not a page of American history, of which we are proud, that was authored by a chronic complainer or prophet of despair. We are doers.

We have a responsibility not to be prisoners of history, but to shape history; a responsibility to fill the role of pathfinder.

Because my parents fled in time, I escaped Hitler. Because of America's generosity, I escaped Stalin. Because of the vision of the Truman-Marshall generation, I have been privileged to live my life in freedom. Millions have still never had that opportunity.

Pride is precisely what will lead the world to hell. I am suggesting an alternative: humbly accepting our responsibility for the world.

The world is in the hands of us all. And yet some have a greater influence on its fate than others. The more influence a person has, the greater the demands placed on their sense of responsibility.

Equality is the best insurance against the political upheaval that authorities fear. The means are the ends — and vice versa.