"Of all living things, only humans consciously anticipate death; the consequent need to choose how to behave in its face - to worry about how to die - distinguishes us from other animals. The need to manage death is the particular lot of humanity."

"High school students ought to seek out campus communities where they feel not only empowered to engage their talents, but also challenged to leave their comfort zones. The ability to embrace new opportunities emerges, in part, from a willingness to take risks and to fail."

"I think the most important leadership lessons I've learned have to do with understanding the context in which you are leading. Universities are places with enormously distributed authority and many different sorts of constituencies, all of whom have a stake in that institution."

"I think that issues of gender have been discussed widely at Harvard. But I think I was chosen clearly on the merits, and I wish to operate as president on the merits. I think, on one level, we might say that I can affirm that women have the aptitude to do science or to do anything, including being president of Harvard."

"Waging war we understand, but not waging peace, or at any rate less consciously so."

"I would strongly recommend any young man to stay away from criminal law. It's not a good place to be, unfortunately."

"Reason is the torch that illuminates the dark corridors of superstition. For where clarity resides, peace inevitably follows — an essential principle for the reflective life."

"I'm against all war."