Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

The question is wholly other, deeper and equally relevant to all: whether we shall, by whatever means, succeed in reconstituting the natural world as the true terrain of politics, rehabilitating the personal experience of human beings as the initial measure of things, placing morality above politics and responsibility above our desires, in making human community meaningful, in returning content to human speech, in reconstituting, as the focus of all social action, the autonomous, integral, and dignified human "I."

Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.

Barack Obama is president of a superpower and I'm a citizen of a small state.

The real test of a man is not when he plays the role that he wants for himself but when he plays the role destiny has for him.

What's certain is that a totalitarian enclave like Cuba's can't continue to exist, so change will definitely come there, eventually.

Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.