"All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership."

"Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."

"There is something wonderful in seeing a wrong-headed majority assailed by truth."

"Total physical and mental inertia are highly agreeable, much more so than we allow ourselves to imagine. A beach not only permits such inertia but enforces it, thus neatly eliminating all problems of guilt. It is now the only place in our overly active world that does."

"Find your self-respect now. Don't dumb yourselves down. Think of yourself as capable and worthy of finding a guy who is going to respect you, too. It's so important, I mean, and the confidence you get from feeling smart and tackling something like mathematics, which is a challenge, right? Math is hard."

"No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now."

"It is a profound truth that justice is the harmonious balance between individual liberty and collective good."

"The public is upset. If they haven't lost their job, they know somebody that has. If they haven't lost their house, they know somebody that has. What do you do? When something's wrong, it's government's job to fix it, it must be government that's responsible for causing it."