Speech

We need to develop cultures of peace, and cultures of peace require that we learn to listen to each other, that we learn to dialogue with each other, that we learn to respect each other.

I'm doing the best I can.

There is nothing more beautiful than finding your course as you believe you bob aimlessly in the current. Wouldn't you know that your path was there all along, waiting for you to knock, waiting for you to become.

Your path is your character defining itself more and more every day like a photograph coming into focus, like a color that becomes more vivid in contrast with its surroundings.

Do not waste it trying to become someone you're not. Use it to become who you are already.

I see the otherness of the other, which appeals to me. In fact, it is the otherness of the other that makes me who I am.

My commandment is, 'Thou shall not stand idly by.' When you witness an injustice, don't stand idly by. You must intervene. You must interfere.

There is more in any human being to celebrate than to denigrate.

Don't confuse success with excellence. The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that 'careerism is death.'

Replace cynicism with its old-fashioned antidote, skepticism.

Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts. They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country — they just make our country worth defending.

Number yourself among the fearless. Do not be afraid.