...there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss. As it has been well expressed in the paradox of Poe, wisdom should reason on the unforeseen.
I never made a success of a lecture delivered in a church yet. People are afraid to laugh in a church. They can't be made to do it in any possible way.
But other people also 'invite' us to behave like victims, when they complain about the unfairness of life, for example, and ask us to agree, to offer advice, to participate. Be careful. When you join in that game you always end up losing.
Hunger, disease and poverty can lead to global instability and leave a vacuum for extremism to fill. So instead of just managing poverty, we must offer nations and people a pathway out of poverty. And as president I've made development a pillar of our foreign policy, alongside diplomacy and defense.
We're going to have the best educated American people in the world. People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.
I don’t worry about gaining weight. I’m fortunate in that I’ve never had to worry about that. Some people eat when they are stressed. I don’t eat enough.
No matter how perfect & honest a person is, there will always be people to criticize. In other words, if everyone agrees with someone, there is something fundamentally wrong with what that individual is doing. If you are not criticized, you are not in the right track.
What we need to realize is that there can be, shall we say, a movement, a stirring among people, which can be organically designed instead of politically designed.
I look forward to hosting Prime Minister Lee [Hsien Loong], whose friendship and partnership I appreciate very much and with whom I've worked throughout my administration. This will also be an opportunity for me to reciprocate the hospitality that the Prime Minister and the people of Singapore showed to me during my visit to Singapore for the APEC summit in 2009.
My hope is to incite that feeling of inspiration in as many other people as possible. To receive and pass along that baton to anyone willing to carry it further. I guess the answer to the question would be I'm inspired by the work of those (and sometimes even the people themselves) who strive to inspire.