I've learned that next to the atomic bomb, the greatest danger is defeatism, despair, and inadequate awareness of what human beings possess. I feel that any problem that can be defined is capable of being resolved. Out of this has come my conviction that no person knows enough to be a pessimist.

The growth of the human mind is still high adventure, in many ways the highest adventure on earth.

The old emphasis upon superficial differences that separate peoples must give way to education for citizenship in the human community.

Pessimism is a waste of time.

Pain is part of the body's magic. It is the way the body transmits a sign to the brain that something is wrong.

The American people today are involved in a warfare more deadly than the war in Vietnam, but few of them seem aware of it and even fewer of them are doing anything about it. This is a war that is being waged against the American environment, against our lands, air, and water, which are the basis of that environment.

We have everything we need, in fact, except the most important thing of all — time to think and the habit of thought.