Al Gore

The global environment crisis is, as we say in Tennessee, real as rain, and I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future.

The heart of the security agenda is protecting lives – and we now know that the number of people who will die of AIDS in the first decade of the 21st Century will rival the number that died in all the wars in all the decades of the 20th century.

Sixty-eight percent of Americans now believe that human activity is responsible for global warming. Sixty-nine percent believe that the Earth is heating up in a significant way. There has been progress, but here is the key: when given a list of challenges to confront, global warming is still listed at near the bottom. What is missing is a sense of urgency.

No matter how hard the loss, defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.

I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth, environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.

As important as it is to change the lightbulbs, it is more important to change the laws.

Thieves must sit in prison.

I can’t ever remember sitting around and saying, ‘gosh let’s hurry up and get these debates going, that’ll win it for me.’ Nope.

Did you suffer? Terribly. In fact, it tore my life apart. Up until that time I didn’t really understand the transformation that was going on in Russia. When I had come home from the GDR, it was clear to me that something was happening. But during the days of the coup, all the ideals, all the goals that I had had when I went to work for the

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.

..reading a book doesn’t mean just turning the pages. It means thinking about it, identifying parts that you want to go back to, asking how to place it in a broader context, pursuing the ideas. There’s no point in reading a book if you let it pass before your eyes and then forget about it ten minutes later. Reading a book is an intellectual exercise, which stimulates thought, questions, imagination.

The argument for liberty is…an argument…against the use of coercion to prevent others from doing better.

In politics a capable ruler must be guided by circumstances, conjectures and conjunctions.

To the extent that Trump’s programs are coherent, they fall into the same general category of those of Paul Ryan, who has granted us the kindness of spelling them out: increase spending on the military…and cut back taxes, mainly on the rich, with no new revenue sources.

My response to the end of Soviet tyranny was similar to my reaction to the defeat of Hitler and Mussolini. In all cases, it is a victory for the human spirit. It should have been particularly welcome to socialists, since a great enemy of socialism had at last collapsed.

Bike is the most democratic transport vehicle. Bike is the most daring, challenging as it gives its owner the tempting feeling of freedom, that is why one can say without any exaggeration, bike is a symbol of freedom.

When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?

I will always be engaged in some way in public service and public life. The minute I left my corporate-law firm to work for the city, I never looked back. I’ve always felt very alive using my gifts and talents to help other people. I sleep better at night. I’m happier.

I’m not sure if Donald Trump is the answer, but I do think that the departure from traditional politicians may be the answer. I’m not sure if he is, but I like the idea of getting away from career politicians.

The Thirteenth Amendment formally ended slavery, but a decade later “slavery by another name” (also the title of an important study by Douglas A. Blackmon) was introduced. Black life was criminalized by overly harsh codes that targeted black people.