Happiness and suffering are feelings - parts of our mind - and so their main causes are not to be found outside the mind. If we really want to be truly happy and free from suffering, we must improve our understanding of the mind.

Our mind is like a cloudy sky: in essence clear and pure, but overcast by clouds of delusions. Just as the thickest clouds can disperse, so, too, even the heaviest delusions can be removed from our mind.

To meditate is to familiarise our mind constantly and thoroughly with a virtuous object.

Usually, we find it difficult to control our mind. It seems as if our mind is like a balloon in the wind - blown here and there by external circumstances.

What if Barack Obama established a Presidential Advisory Committee that would meet once every couple of months, bringing together the former presidents for a conference in order to seek their collective wisdom? There is a wealth of experience in former presidents that generally goes untapped.

There is no substitute for kindness in the home. This lesson I learned from my father. He always listened to my mother's advice. As a result, he was a better, wiser, and kinder man.

As costs mount, in lives and dollars, it is natural to second guess, but one lesson I hope we have learned is that the U.S. cannot go it alone in a policy that leaves American troops taking all the risk and American taxpayers paying all of the costs.

How nations and races of men are to be so governed as may be most conducive to the improvement and happiness of all is one of the most interesting questions that can be offered to our consideration.