Unless sage debate replaces the belligerent strutting now used so extensively, reason will be consumed and the death of logic will surely follow.

Spiro T. Agnew, politician

The one function that television news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if it were.

David Brinkley, news anchor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

In a rational society we would want our presidents to be teachers. In our actual society we insist they be cheerleaders. (George W. Bush was a cheerleader at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.)

Steve Allen, comedian

The main goal of the future is to stop violence.
The world is addicted to it. You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything - even poverty - you can survive it.

Bill Cosby, comedian, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.

Bob Hope, comedian, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

It is an odd dilemma. On the one hand, film is the art form of the 20th century, undeniably... As Lenin said, "the most powerful tool ever invented to influence the mind of man."

Charlton Heston, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes to us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday.

John Wayne, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Ability is of little account without opportunity.

I think knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can.

Lucille Ball, comedian, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.

Audrey Hepburn, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up ... a lot of people don't have the courage to do it.

The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity - love. And the story of a love is not important - what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.

Helen Hayes, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

I feel the greatest gift we can give to anybody is the gift of our honest self.

Fred Rogers, entertainer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.

Johnny Carson, entertainer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

If the American family has seemed in danger of disintegration, I believe and hope it will survive, and I think America will return to old values.

James Cagney, entertainer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

If a man is pictured chopping off a woman's breast, it only gets an R rating, but if, God forbid, a man is pictured kissing a woman's breast, it gets an X rating. Why is violence more acceptable than love?

Sally Struthers, actor

Faith gives you an inner strength and a sense of balance and perspective in life.

Gregory Peck, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.

Never, never rest contented with any circle of ideas, but always be certain that a wider one is still possible.

There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.

You never find yourself until you face the truth.

Pearl Bailey, singer, actor, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Rivers, ponds, lakes and streams - they all have different names, but they all contain water. Just as religions do - they all contain truths.

I believe in the religions of Islam. I believe in Allah and peace.

We have one life; it soon will be past; what we do for God is all that will last.

Muhammad Ali, boxer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

A person always doing his or her best becomes a natural leader, just by example.

Joe DiMaggio, baseball player, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

There's not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Jackie Robinson, baseball player, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

If I were to say, ''God, why me?'' about the bad things, then I should have said, ''God, why me?'' about the good things that happened in my life.

One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

Success is a journey, not a destination.

Arthur Ashe, tennis player, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you.

Arnold Palmer, golfer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

After you get what you want you don't want it.

Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.

Our attitudes control our lives.

Irving Berlin, composer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

I sing to the realists; people who accept it like it is.

Aretha Franklin, singer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

It isn't where you came from, its where you're going that counts.

Ella Fitzgerald, singer, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.

BB King, musician, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.

Duke Ellington, muscian, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient

Eventually it was discovered that God did not want us to be all the same. This was bad news for the governments of the Earth ... Mankind must be made more uniformly if the future was going to work out ... It was about this time that someone came up with the idea of TOTAL CRIMINALIZATION, based on the principle that if we were ALL CROOKS we could at least be uniform to some degree in the eyes of the law. Shrewdly our legislators calculated that most people were too lazy to perform a REAL CRIME. So new laws were manufactured making it possible for anyone to violate them at any time of the day or night ... which is one of the reasons why music was eventually made ILLEGAL.

Frank Zappa, muscian

I have been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester and it appears as though it is becoming monotonous to you. If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word?

I

(me, an individual, a committee of one)

pledge

(dedicate all of my worldly goods)

allegiance

(my love and my devotion)

to the flag

(our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom)

United

(that means that we have all come together)

States

(individual communities that have united into 48 states)

and to the republic

(a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern and
government is of the people and the power to govern is given from the people to the leaders)

for which it stands, one nation

(connected)

indivisible,

(incapable of being divided because all are given liberty which is freedom)

liberty

(the right and power to live one's own life without threats or
fear of retaliation for speaking out against leaders in power)

and justice

(the principle or quality of dealing fairly with others)

for all.

(which means, boys and girls, it's as much your country as it is mine)

Red Skelton, comedian

Americans have, for the most part, been exempt from the genuine tragedy of war and, as a consequence, appear more ready to accept myths about war. They have never endured the reality against which other nations readily measure the cost of combat. And this makes us a very dangerous people.

Richard A. Gabriel, author

Our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us. It is not the way to go. It will not avenge our son’s death. Not in our son’s name.

-Phyllis and Orlando Rodriguez, parents of a man killed in the World Trade Center

I have heard angry rhetoric by some Americans, including many of our nation’s leaders, who advise a heavy dose of revenge and punishment. To those leaders, I would like to make clear that my family and I take no comfort in your words of rage. If you choose to respond to this incomprehensible brutality by perpetuating violence against other innocent human beings, you may not do so in the name of justice for my husband. Your words and imminent acts of revenge only amplify our family’s suffering, deny us the dignity of remembering our loved one in a way that would have made him proud, and mock his vision of America as a peacemaker in the world community.

-Amber Amundsen, mother of two young children,
whose 28-year-old husband was killed in the jet attack on the Pentagon

…demonstrators are once again condemning America in a foreign city. This time, it is in Kabul, Afghanistan. Shouting ‘death to America,’ burning our flag, and setting off bombings, the demonstrators express their hatred toward America.

America has just placed sanctions on yet another country to discipline those who do not obey American commands. The nerve of them. Do they not know America is the most powerful nation on Earth and America has to protect it's interests?

They should do as America says and obey American Central Intelligence Agency directives.

This process is not new. It has been going on for 50 years, and it has brought us grief and multiplied our enemies. American foreign policy of military interventionism has brought American death and destruction to many foreign lands and loss of life for many Americans. From Korea and Vietnam to Serbia, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan and now Iraq again, Americans have ventured far from our shores in search of wars to fight. The most current anti-American demonstrations in Kabul were understandable and predictable.

America's one-time ally, Osama bin Laden, when he served as a freedom fighter against the Soviets in Afghanistan and when American's bombed his Serbian enemies while siding with his friends in Kosovo, has not been fooled and knows that his cause cannot be promoted by America's fickle foreign policy. There is no evidence that this policy serves the interests of anyone on Earth but America's.

It certainly increases the danger to all American as America has become the number one target of terrorists. Conventional war against America is out of the question, but acts of terrorism, whether it is the shooting down of a civilian airliner or bombing a New York City building, are almost impossible to prevent in a reasonably open society. It is hard for the average citizen of these countries to understand why Americans must be so involve in their affairs, and resort so readily to bombing and boycotts in countries thousands of miles away from America. American foreign policy is deeply flawed and does not serve American national security interest. American foreign policy in the Middle East has endangered some of the moderate Arab governments and galvanized Muslim militants.

-Ron Paul, U.S. Congressman from Texas, excerpts of Nov. 17, 1999 speech