"I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian, but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination."

"Gentlemen, there is business before your house and I propose to get right to it, obeying, as far as I can, what seems to me becoming to be known as the Republican law of gravity."

"Some war hero is always getting in my way."

"I have sometimes said that flattery is all right, Mr. President, if you don't inhale it."

"Ignorance is stubborn and prejudice dies hard."

"Whenever I hear one of these old guard leaders on the other side talking about cutting taxes, when he knows it means weakening the nation, I always think of that story about the tired old capitalist who was driving alone in his car one day, and finally, he said "James, drive over the bluff; I want to commit suicide.""

"Communism is the death of the soul. It is the organization of total conformity — in short, of tyranny — and it is committed to making tyranny universal."

"The whole basis of the United Nations is the right of all nations great or small — to have weight, to have a vote, to be attended to, to be a part of the twentieth century."

"Never run against a war hero."

"It's hard to lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse."

"An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics."

"Some people approach every problem with an open mouth."

"I can't say that I love it with a fierce passion — indeed as a profession it's rather disappointing since it is not a profession at all, but rather a business service station and repair shop."

"The art of government has grown from its seeds in the tiny city-states of Greece to become the political mode of half the world. So let us dream of a world in which all states, great and small, work together for the peaceful flowering of the republic of man."

"Peace is the one condition of survival in this nuclear age."

"Accuracy to a newspaper is what virtue is to a lady; but a newspaper can always print a retraction."

"The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. So we must never neglect any work of peace within our reach, however small."

"I am a lawyer. I think that one of the most fundamental responsibilities, not only of every citizen, but particularly of lawyers, is to give testimony in a court of law, to give it honestly and willingly, and it will be a very unhappy day for Anglo-Saxon justice when a man, even a man in public life, is too timid to state what he knows and what he has heard about a defendant in a criminal trial for fear that defendant might be convicted. That would to me be the ultimate timidity."

"The best reason I can think of for not running for President of the United States is that you have to shave twice a day."

"There are worse things than losing an election; the worst thing is to lose one's convictions and not tell the people the truth."

"There was a time when a fool and his money were soon parted, but now it happens to everybody."

"A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you."

"You can tell the size of a man by the size of the thing that makes him mad."

"Because we believe in the free mind we are also fighting those who, in the name of anti-Communism, would assail the community of freedom itself."

"On this shrunken globe men can no longer live as strangers. Men can war against each other as hostile neighbors, as we are determined not to do; or they can co-exist in frigid isolation, as we are doing. But our prayer is that men everywhere will learn, finally, to live as brothers, to respect each other's differences, to heal each other's wounds, to promote each other's progress, and to benefit from each other's knowledge."

"We travel together, passengers on a little spaceship, dependent on its vulnerable reserves of air and soil; all committed, for our safety, to its security and peace; preserved from annihilation only by the care, the work and the love we give our fragile craft. We cannot maintain it half fortunate, half miserable, half confident, half despairing, half slave — to the ancient enemies of man — half free in a liberation of resources undreamed of until this day. No craft, no crew can travel safely with such vast contradictions. On their resolution depends the survival of us all."

"A diplomat's life is made up of three ingredients: protocol, Geritol and alcohol."

"The great aristocrat, the beloved leader, the profound historian, the gifted painter, the superb politician, the lord of language, the orator, the wit—yes, and the dedicated bricklayer—behind all of them was a simple man of faith, steadfast in defeat, generous in victory, resigned in age, trusting in a loving providence, and committing his achievements and his triumphs to a higher power."

"An editor is someone who separates the wheat from the chaff and then prints the chaff."

"The Republicans stroke platitudes until they purr like epigrams."

"Nixon is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation."

"A politician is a statesman who approaches every question with an open mouth."

"She thought of herself as an ugly duckling, but she walked in beauty in the ghettos of the world, bringing with her the reminder of her beloved St. Francis, "It is in the giving that we receive." And wherever she walked beauty was forever there."

"After four years at the United Nations I sometimes yearn for the peace and tranquillity of a political convention."

"For my part I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance."

"It will be helpful in our mutual objective to allow every man in America to look his neighbor in the face and see a man — not a color."

"You are in the courtroom of world opinion…. All right, sir, let me ask you one simple question: Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no — don't wait for the translation — yes or no?" [The Soviet representative refuses to answer.] "You can answer yes or no. You have denied they exist. I want to know if I understood you correctly. I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision. And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room."

"She would rather light a candle than curse the darkness, and her glow has warmed the world."

"The first principle of a free society is an untrammeled flow of words in an open forum."

"We have confused the free with the free and easy."

"The elephant has a thick skin, a head full of ivory, and as everyone who has seen a circus parade knows, proceeds best by grasping the tail of its predecessor."

"With the supermarket as our temple and the singing commercial as our litany, are we likely to fire the world with an irresistible vision of America's exalted purpose and inspiring way of life?"

"Freedom is not an ideal, it is not even a protection, if it means nothing more than freedom to stagnate, to live without dreams, to have no greater aim than a second car and another television set."

"You will find that the truth is often unpopular and the contest between agreeable fancy and disagreeable fact is unequal. For, in the vernacular, we Americans are suckers for good news."

"Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility — these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race."

"We must recover the element of quality in our traditional pursuit of equality. We must not, in opening our schools to everyone, confuse the idea that all should have equal chance with the notion that all have equal endowments."

"We live in a time when automation is ushering in a second industrial revolution, and the powers of the atom are about to be harnessed for ever greater production. We live at a time when even the ancient spectre of hunger is vanishing. This is the age of abundance! Never in history has there been such an opportunity to show what we can do to improve the quality of living now that the old, terrible, grinding anxieties of daily bread, of shelter and raiment are disappearing."