I was the black sheep of the family and my mother never really understood me.

The solid middle-class values of hard work responsibility family community and faith my father talked about tirelessly from Iowa to New York he lived at home. The hopes he had for his family and for me he had for all Americans. I think Americans understood this.

A leader who confines his role to his people's experience dooms himself to stagnation a leader who outstrips his people's experience runs the risk of not being understood.

Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.

Equality and development will not be achieved however if peace is not understood from women's' point of view.

More countries have understood that women's equality is a prerequisite for development.

Equality rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences wrongly understood as it has been so tragically in our time it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

Earth Day 1970 was irrefutable evidence that the American people understood the environmental threat and wanted action to resolve it.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to be an actor. I never even thought about other careers. The acting field is certainly not the path many Indian parents encourage their children to take but mine were very supportive. They wanted me to have an education but understood that this is what I wanted to do.

Except among those whose education has been in the minimalist style it is understood that hasty moral judgments about the past are a form of injustice.