The Vietnam War was a great tragedy for our country. And it is now far enough away so that one can study without using the slogans to see what's really happened.

I have two rules for a great book: make me think and make me smile.

Many of us have been touched by the magic of a great teacher. I know I have.

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.

Great literature should do some good to the reader: must quicken his perception though dull, and sharpen his discrimination though blunt, and mellow the rawness of his personal opinions.

By tradition, Beijing is a city of walls, sheltering its intrigues and ambitions behind a series of concentric barriers from the Great Wall down to courtyard homes that draw sunlight only from the gardens at their core.

What began as a revolt in response to the King of Great Britain's repeated injuries against the colonies, soon became a passionate and glorious call to fight for the beginnings of a new country.

The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

The financial crisis and the Great Recession posed the most significant macroeconomic challenges for the United States in a half-century, leaving behind high unemployment and below-target inflation and calling for highly accommodative monetary policies.

We often grow up being told that we can do this or that, but if you don't see anybody that looks like you doing it, you don't believe you can do it. But I had great teachers, and I wanted to be a great teacher.

People can do more than they ever believe they can do. Physically, mentally, academically. You have to be pushed. It hurts. But it's worth it, and it's a great thing.

He who would accomplish little must sacrifice little; he who would achieve much must sacrifice much; he who would attain highly must sacrifice greatly.

There is strength in numbers, but organizing those numbers is one of the great challenges.

Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants.

You know what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know that if you don't have a pencil and pad by the bed, it will be completely gone by the next morning. Sometimes it's important to wake up and stop dreaming. When a really great dream shows up, grab it.

In photography, the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little, human detail can become a Leitmotiv.

Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones.

Never give in - never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense.

I love the sunrise, as I am definitely a morning person! It's a great time to get up and have a coffee in the garden by myself before everybody wakes up.

My feeling was, you plant some seeds. If they grow, great; if they don't, you don't take it personally. Not my problem; I just kept planting. Just like a farmer.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark.

Good leaders organize and align people around what the team needs to do. Great leaders motivate and inspire people with why they're doing it. That's purpose. And that's the key to achieving something truly transformational.

To do a great right do a little wrong.

Let the people on both sides keep their self-possession, and just as other clouds have cleared away in due time, so will this, and this great nation shall continue to prosper as before.

I don't like to do much with my hair - which is good, because I don't know how! I just always make sure I have a great haircut.

Gray is great. People think gray is a neutral, but I think it's such a moody, intense, dramatic and sexy color. It's very sleek.

It's hard to be humble, when you're as great as I am.

Good design is making something intelligible and memorable. Great design is making something memorable and meaningful.

I'm not sure whether I've been happy. After my last book tour, I sat on my balcony with a cup of tea. I thought: 'You can't rewind the movie. I've spent more than half my life in the Middle East. There have been great moments of horror and depression and loneliness.'

There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.

Once you allow yourself to identify with the people in a story, then you might begin to see yourself in that story even if on the surface it's far removed from your situation. This is what I try to tell my students: this is one great thing that literature can do - it can make us identify with situations and people far away.

One great use of words is to hide our thoughts.

I am an American man, and in America, we still think of figure skaters as little girls in pretty, sparkly dresses - I worked very hard to change the perception and image of figure skating, and I think I've done a great job on my end, but in figure skating, taste needs to evolve.

To be a great nation and a great people, you have to do great things.

Awards are great, as you get to meet up with friends and colleagues from your industry - a sort of reunion.

What greater aspiration and challenge are there for a mother than the hope of raising a great son or daughter?

I think that, if anything, the pageant is great for people who suffer from body issues. It's all about being comfortable with what you're given and what you have and being able to flaunt it without being insecure. It's about empowering women, not making them feel weak or less.

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.

An understanding of the natural world and what's in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfillment.

There is no such thing as a great talent without great will power.

The idea of winning a doctor's degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral struggle, and the moral fight possessed immense attraction for me.

The first test of a truly great man is his humility. By humility I don't mean doubt of his powers or hesitation in speaking his opinion, but merely an understanding of the relationship of what he can say and what he can do.

There's been a lot of really great intensive research into earthquakes, but we can't predict an earthquake down to the day. We can't predict where a hurricane is going to be a month in advance.

Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed... Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.

I woke up and realized life is great and people are awesome and life is worth living.

It is a useless life that is not consecrated to a great ideal. It is like a stone wasted on the field without becoming a part of any edifice.

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.

My parents survived the Great Depression and brought me up to live within my means, save some for tomorrow, share and don't be greedy, work hard for the necessities in life knowing that money does not make you better or more important than anyone else. So, extravagance has been bred out of my DNA.

Great conversations always spark in a genuine interest to recognize and know the other person's story and, therefore, recognizing and understanding and celebrating their humanity.

Every great work makes the human face more admirable and richer, and that is its whole secret.