We want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the Supreme Court decisions.

Courage is the enabling virtue for any philosopher - for any human being, I think, in the end. Courage to think, courage to love, courage to hope.

Courage is being true to yourself, true to a sense of integrity.

To be great in our times too often means to have great prosperity and no moral magnanimity at all.

Anytime I look at a president, I don't care what color he is.

A fully functional multiracial society cannot be achieved without a sense of history and open, honest dialogue.

Hope and optimism are different. Optimism tends to be based on the notion that there's enough evidence out there to believe things are gonna be better, much more rational, deeply secular, whereas hope looks at the evidence and says, "It doesn't look good at all. Doesn't look good at all. Gonna go beyond the evidence to create new possibilities based on visions that become contagious to allow people to engage in heroic actions always against the odds, no guarantee whatsoever." That's hope. I'm a prisoner of hope, though. Gonna die a prisoner of hope.