We shall listen, not lecture; learn, not threaten. We will enhance our safety by earning the respect of others and showing respect for them. In short, our foreign policy will rest on the traditional American values of restraint and empathy, not on military might.

Americans, the eyes of the world are upon you. How can you expect the world to believe in you and respect your preaching of democracy when you yourself treat your colored brothers as you do?

Americans have been conditioned to respect newness, whatever it costs them.

True Americanism is opposed utterly to any political divisions resting on race and religion.

I'm African-American. I'd rather follow an African religion. That's my heritage.

As Americans, we're not sure we share values. We're sometimes even afraid to use the word 'values.' We talk about teaching ethics in schools - people say, 'What ethics? Whose ethics? Maybe we can't.' And they confuse that with teaching of religion.

The American way was for commerce, personal relationships, and religion to be voluntary. No one was forced to participate in something he didn't want.

Overly simplistic suggestions that we ban people from entering this country, based on religion, or ban people from an entire region of the world is counterproductive. It will not work. We need to build bridges to communities, to American-Muslim communities right now, to encourage them to help us in our homeland security efforts.

The thing that is being lost is heritage. In Africa, religion and advertisement and television and media hype have gotten Africans to where they are convinced psychologically that their own heritage is heathen, pagan, barbaric, savage, primitive.

It is wrong to divide the nation white against black, native born against immigrant or one religion against another. It is also wrong to divide people by income. East Germany was not an improvement over South Africa. Obama divides Americans against each other. This is wrong.

We Americans can be rightly proud of the fact that the right to the free and unfettered exercise of religion is a primary principle in the vision and founding of our country. It defines us as a people, and has uniquely contributed to making this nation great.

I left my husband a year after 9/11. Not because he was an American and I an Egyptian, nothing to do with culture or religion, nothing to do with 9/11. We brought out the worst in each other. But before we separated, we visited N.Y.C. one more time together for a friend's engagement, and we went to pay our respects at the site of the attacks.

The Americans combine the notions of religion and liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive of one without the other.

You know, I think that President Obama is a person who has a great relationship with a number of people. Colin Powell does, too. I think Colin Powell is a fine American, a great leader and sees things in President Obama that he agrees with. He's entitled to have his opinion.

Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, but by their own choice, Puerto Rico is not a state. The relationship has worked well for Puerto Rico - which has strengthened its culture, language and economy - and for the United States, which has helped create in Puerto Rico a showcase of democracy and prosperity for all of Latin America.

North Americans as a whole need to embrace having clothes altered to their body. I hear it all the time: why do the Europeans always look so good? They have a relationship with their tailor and spend the time and money to make their clothes look their best.

I'm Nigerian. I'm African. I have a lot to say. Apart from what I say, though, is the feeling. People can relate to that feeling. It's a reciprocal relationship. They feed off me and I feed off them.

Most African women are taught to endure abusive marriages. They say endurance means a good wife but most women endure abusive relationship because they are not empowered economically; they depend on their husbands.

I think that the United States and the Philippines have always had a good relationship with each other. We were colonized by the Americans and we have their culture and our traditions even up to this day and I think that we're very welcoming with the Americans. And I don't see any problem with that at all.

Our culture is steeped in positive thinking - from the self-help mega-industry to college courses in positive psychology to the enduring pull of the American dream. There is no dislike button on Facebook. Nobody wants to be a downer.

I'm African-American. There are more eyes on me than anybody. They're going to take the negative before the positive.

For the longest time, the Asian-American community would talk about representation, but I think it's also about the freedom to really shape, create, and explore issues that are important to us, regardless of whether it's positive or negative, as long as it's three dimensional.

As an African-American male born with a couple of strikes against you because of your skin color, I think it's very, very important to have some positive role models around, especially male influences.

Millions of Americans are standing up and saying, 'We want our country back!' Republicans, Democrats, Independents, will not go down the path of Greece, we will not go quietly into the night.