Cory Booker quotes:

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.

When your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare - it's patriotism.

Our platform calls for a balanced deficit reduction plan where the wealthy pay their fair share. And when your country is in a costly war, with our soldiers sacrificing abroad and our nation facing a debt crisis at home, being asked to pay your fair share isn't class warfare - it's patriotism.

These are the themes in life which are consistent in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism - of being grounded in who you are and being engaged in an unjust world.

You have to understand the Newark Riots - a lot of people understand that the pain was the initial explosion of anger and alienation, but after that, the response, sending the National Guard troops - a lot of violence was carried out and perpetrated by those who were allegedly coming here to protect residents.

This November, with the re-election of President Barack Obama, this generation of Americans will ever expand upon the hope, the truth and the promise of America.

After Yale Law School, I was proud to try to live up to my parents' example and began my career working for The Urban Justice Center in the streets of Newark, organizing residents to fight for better housing conditions.

In college, I was a fiercely committed Democrat - a meeting with Jack Kemp, then Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, challenged my blind partisanship.

If we cannot provide excellent educational opportunities to all children, safe communities, quality health coverage, or robust and fair avenues towards wealth creation, then our nation will increasingly be in peril.

In America we have a Declaration of Independence, but our history, our advancements, our global strength all point to an American declaration of interdependence.

When I was just a twenty-something, I came to Newark, and I found a connection to the city in a spiritual way. I found a connection here and people here that reminded me so much of my roots and my own family.

I live in Brick Towers, a public housing project in Newark's Central Ward. I moved in when the projects were privately owned by a man who the residents and I believed was a grade A slumlord.

I'm a person that's grounded in faith and believe that my core values, motivation, inspiration, draw from a conception of the world in that way.

I'm going to have setbacks and failures; I'm not going to see change right away all of the time or most of the time. But everybody I've ever respected has failed at one thing or another. I've definitely fallen on my face. But I've also had a comparatively easy life.

I was raised in a very religious home with two parents who were deeply involved in the black church. When I was young, I went to a small black AME church in New Jersey.

We also must pull from our highest ideals of justice and protect against those ills that destabilized our economy - like predatory lending, over-leveraged financial institutions and the unchecked avarice of the past that trumped fairness and common sense. Our platform calls for significant cuts in federal spending.

You should be able to afford health care for your family. You should be able to retire with dignity and respect. And you should be able to give your children the kind of education that allows them to dream even bigger, go even farther and accomplish even more than you could ever imagine.

My father passed away a few days before my election. This man, an African American born to a poor single mother in 1936 in the South, would worry in the last years of his life that he had better life chances when he was growing up than a young man born in the same circumstances would have today.

My simple point is that I judge a person's faith by how they live their life, not by the tenets of their religion. I've watched the holiest of people walk past somebody in need or treat their staff mean. To me, the beauty of faith is only seen when people live it consistently or struggle to do so.

We have had in our nation a well-celebrated Declaration of Independence. But our success as a country will depend upon a new 'Declaration of Inter-dependence.' A belief in how much we need each other, how much we share one common destiny.

I'm intending to work on juvenile justice reform, sentencing reform, reentry, drug treatment, access to mental health care.

As I review the great history of our nation, community organizers have been at the center of so many of our great social movements.

Cities can become the engines that fuel our nation's growth and prosperity, and they can be wide gateways for families to achieve their own American dream of prosperity.

The richness of America is that we are diverse. We're not Sweden. We're not Norway. We are a great American experiment. And as soon as we start trying to forget race or turn our back on race, number one, we don't confront the real racial realities that still persist.

I don't want to be a race-transcending leader. I want to be deeply understood as a man, as African- American, as a Christian, all that I am.

My generation of Americans, the scions of daring dreamers, the children of the fearlessly faithful and the offspring of many of history's most audacious actors - we, together, drink deeply from wells of freedom, liberty and opportunity that we did not dig.

I learned about community organizing from my parents. As a child, their stories were so instructive.

I don't know what the strategy will be in Washington. The reality is, is, I have got to go down there, as my mentor, as people like Bill Bradley have told me to do, get to know your colleagues on both sides of the aisle, recognize that they, too, beat with the same heart and the same type of blood.

I don't know what God has planned for me or you or anyone, but I do know that in darkness, you discover an indistinguishable light.

Our platform emphasizes that a vibrant, free and fair market is essential to economic growth.

The change we seek for our nation is not the choice of an individual but must be the calling of a country.

People are always trying to draw simplistic dialectics that can capture things.

There was a small point in my life in law school, right before I moved to Newark, when I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I felt so lost.

No matter who you are, no matter what your color, creed, how you choose to pray or who you choose to love, that if you are an American - first generation or fifth - one who is willing to work hard, play by the rules and apply your God-given talents - that you should be able to find a job that pays the bills.

This is our history - from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges - our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation's infrastructure.

We choose forward. We choose inclusion. We choose growing together. We choose American economic might and muscle, standing strong on the bedrock of the American ideal: a strong, empowered and ever-growing middle class.

I am a geek nerd who happened to have a temporary period of jockiness.

We become distracted from productive labors by our perceived opponents; we become focused on them and not on our larger calling to advance our nation; our debate becomes more about scoring points against an adversary and less about advancing our common cause.

Our nation was founded with a bunch of founding legislators who joined together to move our country out of the blocks and get us started, and every generation since then has found a way to advance the ball down the field.

I want to be myself. I want to be as authentic as possible.

There is too much disagreement for disagreement's sake. In a time of persistent challenges that still call into question our most sacred aspirations as a country, we cannot afford shallow callous divisiveness in our public debate.

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.

For an economy built to last we must invest in what will fuel us for generations to come. This is our history - from the Transcontinental Railroad to the Hoover Dam, to the dredging of our ports and building of our most historic bridges - our American ancestors prioritized growth and investment in our nation's infrastructure.

I hope and understand that people are getting a better recognition that food stamps is a program that really helps America, helps families in need. It's not a government handout. If anything, it's a safety net that helps people through difficult times and bridges them towards stability.

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

Marriage equality is not a choice. It is a legal right.

I love talking about the challenges [Newark, NJ] has because of the way they are always brilliantly disguised as opportunities.. .the biggest global challenge that there is is a challenge of the spirit, a challenge of our vision, a challenge and a test of our ideals, of who we SAY we are GOING TO BE.

May we all, as a nation of believers, fight for the achievement of America; may we make sacrifices worthy of those proud men and women who fought for us, labored for us, bled soil from the beaches of Normandy to the fields of Gettysburg for us.

People who think I'm gay, some part of me thinks it's wonderful. Because I want to challenge people on their homophobia. I love seeing on Twitter when someone says I'm gay, and I say, 'So what does it matter if I am? So be it. I hope you are not voting for me because you are making the presumption that I'm straight.'

We should not be scrimping on investments in public safety. The lack of infrastructure spending is costing us lives in America. It's costing every commuter.

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.

You can't have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation.

As a government leader, I'm not going to sit on the sidelines and watch all these other sectors innovate. I'm going to do everything I can as a leader to be in that innovation, to be a provocateur for that innovation.

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.

Remember that the biggest thing you could do today is a small act of kindness.

You cant have a physical transformation until you have a spiritual transformation.

When American citizens pull together, there is little we can't accomplish.

Everybody wants to find their soul mate, and I'm no different. That's definitely what I want in the future.

I'd gladly take a grenade, if it meant saving Newark.

Our platform is crafted by Democrats but it is not about partisanship, its about pragmatism.

I debated between law school and divinity.

Cities can be places that represent the best of our ideals: where Americans of all different backgrounds can come together and, through their interactions, and even through their unity, spawn true American greatness.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Real courage is holding on to a still voice in your head that says, 'I must keep going.' It's that voice that says nothing is a failure if it is not final. That voice that says to you, 'Get out of bed. Keep going. I will not quit.'

What more could you ask for in life than to be given an impossible challenge?

Before you tell me what you teach and preach, show me how you live and give.

Never let your soul be silenced. Live life out loud. Every day tell your truth not with words but with actions from your heart.

Greatness is helping others realize they are great, beautiful and capable. Genius is seeing the wonder and possibility in those others ignore.

Can you every single day tell a true testimony of who you are? That's really what life is about.

Give the respect you want to receive; embody the grace you hope to encounter; and help others with no expectations whatsoever.

If you understand the Black Lives Matter movement, there's no central leadership of the movement. This is an organic, grassroots movement all around America.

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

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!

Go out there and swear to this world your oath, not with your words, but with what you do. Not with your hand over your heart, but with your hand outstretched to a world that desperately needs your hand, your help, your insights, your creativity, your honor, your courage. It needs you.

Life is about where you are right now, and the choices you make.

The world you see outside of you will always be a reflection of what you have inside of you.

It's about time that we create first class citizenship for every American plain and simple. Every New Jersey-ian. This should not be a popular vote. This is something we should do now.

If you want the things people don't have, you have to do the things other people will not do.

The only thing that weakens worry is work, so I will be working for Marie Corfield

I visited the Ethiopian National Project which was created by the government to fully integrate Ethiopian Jews into Israel's society. They're still facing a lot of challenges with poverty, unemployment but the Ethiopian National Project is really doing an extraordinary job in empowering the Ethiopian community to be successful.

The first thing we should be concerned about the BLM movement should be the issues that the Black Lives Matter movement is bringing forward. There's no fundamental platform being brought by activists in Oakland, Baltimore, or New Jersey. The main issues that you see, the commonality between activists all around the country, are trying to deal with the challenges in the criminal justice system, something that is very much central to my work. So my hope is that people stay focused on the urgency to create justice here at home.

I still have that new senator smell.

If you want extraordinary results you must put in extraordinary effort.

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

Cynicism cripples our imagination and limits our ability to see faint possibilities amidst glaring problems.

Heroism is not fighting some big battle. It is not standing up to some fearsome foe ... Heroism is every day getting up with a mission to show this world that you are going to light it up with your spirit, to make the best out of yourself.

The more you limit your choices, thereby limiting thought, the more you can simplify your life and focus your energy elsewhere.

One of the very hallmarks of our nation is the ideal of E Pluribus Unum. It is a concept that richly flows from the highest ideals of our nation.