If you look at great human civilizations, from the Roman Empire to the Soviet Union, you will see that most do not fail simply due to external threats but because of internal weakness, corruption or a failure to manifest the values and ideals they espouse.

Cory Booker

Don't speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don't tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all God's children. Don't preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I'm not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.

Cory Booker

faith god love

No matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, enthusiasm over lethargy, love over hate. This is our true freedom. Whatever life may throw at us, we have the freedom and ability to choose our attitude. And I believe it is in those moments of choice that we manifest our destiny.

Cory Booker

hate kindness attitude

It is okay not to like someone, but it is never okay to try and degrade, humiliate, or dehumanize them.

Cory Booker

degrade okay trying

Leadership is not a position or a title, it is action and example.

Cory Booker

titles example action

Don't let your inability to do everything undermine your determination to do something.

Cory Booker

inability determination

Before you speak to me about your religion, first show it to me in how you treat other people. Before you tell me how much you love your God, show me in how much you love all His children.

Cory Booker

christian god love

Dream big & have huge ambition, but never forget life is lived in small moments and sustained by simple acts of love.

Cory Booker

ambition simple dream

When happy, be kind. When angry, be kind. When hopeful, be kind. When discouraged, be kind. When ever, be kind.

Cory Booker

discouraged be-kind hopeful

No matter what, we always have the power to choose hope over despair, engagement over apathy, kindness over indifference, love over hate.

Cory Booker

despair hate kindness

I caution anyone who in their protest becomes the very thing that they're protesting against. Meaning turning to hateful speech, violating principles and ideals that are sacred in America. We need to raise our voices, but we do not need to indulge in hate.

Cory Booker

caution protest hate

The right attitude can transform a barrier into a blessing, an obstacle into an opportunity or a stumbling block into a stepping stone.

Cory Booker

block blessing attitude

First class in life has nothing to do with the clothes you wear, the car you drive or the house you live in. First class is and always will be about the content of your character, the quality of your ideas and the kindness in your heart.

Cory Booker

kindness heart graduation

You need to understand something, you drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty and opportunity that you did not dig. You eat lavishly from banquet tables prepared for you by your ancestors. You sit under the shade of trees that you did not plant or cultivate or care for. You have a choice in life, you can just sit back, getting fat, dumb, and happy, consuming all the blessings put before you, or it can metabolize inside of you, become fuel to get you into the fight, to make this democracy real, to make it true to its words that we can be a nation of liberty and justice for all.

Cory Booker

fighting real opportunity

In life, it is never the big battle, the big moment, the big speech, the big election. That does not change things. What changes things is every day, getting up and rendering small acts of service and love beyond that what's expected of you or required of you.

Cory Booker

small-acts battle love-is

You cannot find what you do not seek. You cannot grasp when you do not reach. Your dreams won't come up to your front door. You have got to take a leap if you want to soar.

Cory Booker

dream want doors

Give more than is expected, love more than seems wise, serve more than seems necessary, and help more than is asked.

Cory Booker

wise inspirational love

Let your critics make you humble, and your enemies make you wise. Learn from every stumble but let nothing keep you down, for you were born to rise!

Cory Booker

positive-thinking humble wise

The history in our country speaks to our highest values of people who did not accept things as they are and go along with them. They resisted, they refused to accept the world as it is, they demanded it to be a better reflection of their highest dreams and highest aspirations.

Cory Booker

reflection dream country

May we help more than we hurt, may we seek to understand more than be understood and may we love more than we judge.

Cory Booker

hurt inspirational love

Courage has you say in a defiant spirit you can take everything from me, you could cut me deep, you could render me in shame but you will never ever stop me from loving those who mock me, from loving those that hate me, from loving those who don't forgive me, from loving the cynics, from loving the darkness so much that I myself through my small acts of consistent unyielding love may bring on the light.

Cory Booker

cutting hate beautiful