As I visited the various neighborhoods in the campaign, I learned fast that it's a mistake to think that all of the wisdom and possible solutions to our problems are available only in this building.

Surely wisdom will come as we listen to learn from children, parents, partners, neighbors, Church leaders, and the Lord.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

SDPD works to protect everyone regardless of their immigration status because trust between the community and law enforcement is key to stopping crime and keeping neighborhoods safe. If someone commits a crime, they will be held accountable whether or not they are a citizen.

All the blessings we enjoy are Divine deposits, committed to our trust on this condition, that they should be dispensed for the benefit of our neighbors.

When a citizen gives his suffrage to a man of known immorality he abuses his trust; he sacrifices not only his own interest, but that of his neighbor; he betrays the interest of his country.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Once, at Thanksgiving, a neighbor wandered in while my cousin Lisa worked on a turkey, shearing meat off its frame and sliding the steaming slices onto a big flowered plate. 'Hey, that's the man's job,' she yelped, in between slurps of her Big Gulp. No one even paused to acknowledge the comment; everyone just laughed and laughed.

Most people repent their sins by thanking God they ain't so wicked as their neighbors.

During my eleven years as a New York City public school teacher, I saw firsthand the impact that poverty has on the classroom. In low-income neighborhoods like Sunset Park, where I taught, students as young as five years old enter school affected by the stresses often created by poverty: domestic violence, drug abuse, gang activity.

The contrasts between what is spent today to educate a child in the poorest New York City neighborhoods, where teacher salaries are often even lower than the city averages, and spending levels in the wealthiest suburban areas are daunting challenges to any hope New Yorkers might retain that even semblances of fairness still prevail.

I first started actually playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I had some neighborhood friends who told me they were starting a band and needed a guitarist. I told my folks, and by the next day I had a guitar lesson set up with a local teacher.

For every R. Kelly or Bill Cosby or Harvey Weinstein, there's, you know, the owner of the grocery store, the coach, the teacher, the neighbor, who are doing the same things. But we don't pay attention until it's a big name. And we don't pay attention 'til it's a big celebrity.

What is the meaning of 'gossip?' Doesn't it originate with sympathy, an interest in one's neighbor, degenerating into idle curiosity and love of tattling? Which is worse, this habit, or keeping one's self so absorbed intellectually as to forget the sufferings and cares of others, to lose sympathy through having too much to think about?

The secret of success in every field is redefining what success means to you. It can't be your parent's definition, the media's definition, or your neighbor's definition. Otherwise, success will never satisfy you.

Chicago's neighborhoods have always been this city's greatest strength.

I always loved the way music made me feel. I did sports at school and all, but when I got home, it was just music. Everybody in my neighborhood loved music. I could jump the back fence and be in the park where there were ghetto blasters everywhere.

I also developed an interest in sports, and played in informal games at a nearby school yard where the neighborhood children met to play touch football, baseball, basketball and occasionally, ice hockey.

When I was a kid, there was this neighborhood beer and wine store that sold old comics for a nickel a piece. I'd load up on old books whenever we went on vacation. Yeah, I have a lot of fond memories of riding in the back of the ol' station wagon and reading 'Mystery in Space' and 'Strange Adventures' as we headed up to Torch Lake.

I'm happy that I have my family, and I'm happy that I had Virginia, where I grew up, to retreat to any time I felt overwhelmed. Whenever there were times when I felt like the rug was being pulled out from under me and I was floating in this crazy space, I would stop and go back to that neighborhood and realize nothing's changed, really.

The people you see in Nigeria today have always lived as neighbors in the same space for as long as we can remember. So it's a matter of settling down, lowering the rhetoric, the level of hostility in the rhetoric is too high.

As a society, we're failing. In so many ways. Such high incarceration rates of underrepresented minorities ultimately means we're missing out on great potential from black and Latino communities. Yes, there's immense talent brewing even within the most impoverished neighborhoods. Talent is universal, but opportunity is not.

Just as important as our society as a whole are our small communities: our neighborhoods, workplaces and schools.

If black people use their resources properly, they can become as competitive as any group in society - take control of our neighborhoods, our businesses, our schools, including our teachers. The only thing keeping black people from doing it is this idiotic idea about integration, about being racially balanced.