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I had this feeling that, somehow, we ought to be teaching not just the history of particular nations or particular regions, but the history of humanity.

We also learn that this country and the Western world have no monopoly of goodness and truth and scholarship, we begin to appreciate the ingredients that are indispensable to making a better world. In a life of learning that is, perhaps, the greatest lesson of all.

If September 11th has taught us anything, it's certainly that the world has never been so interdependent. It is impossible now to be an island of prosperity in a sea of despair.

The fact is, everything we want or yearn for is won through other people. No man on an island is happy; he is merely existing. The joyous life is the one filled with rich relationships.

Happiness is actually found in simple things, such as taking my nephew around the island by bicycle or seeing the stars at night. We go to coffee shops or see airplanes land at the airport.

As an American people, what is greatest about our history are the many times we have led this world away from hate, towards hope.

What you end up seeing when you look at history is that people who have been good at pushing the boundaries of possibility, and exploring those frontiers of good ideas and innovations, have rarely done it in moments of great inspiration. They don't just have a brilliant breakthrough idea out of nowhere and leap ahead of everyone else.

We have learned that peace and well-being are indivisible and that our peace and well-being cannot be purchased at the price of peace or the well-being of any other country.