False friendship, like the ivy, decays and ruins the walls it embraces; but true friendship gives new life and animation to the object it supports.
No doubt, the White House thinks the American people know Obama's story. But since the Inauguration, we've seen only the president's present: his perfect family, his Ivy League elegance, his effortless mastery of complex issues. We never see him sweat. And we forget that he ever had to struggle.
Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and the rest of the Ivy League are worthy institutions, to be sure, but they're not known for educating large numbers of poor young people.
If the Ivy League was the breeding ground for the elites of the American Century, Stanford is the farm system for Silicon Valley.
I'm a graduate of Princeton, and I just want to say you don't have to go to an Ivy League school to be on the Supreme Court.
When I was 14 or 15, I was a really good volleyball player, so I thought, 'Well, maybe I'll just get a scholarship to an Ivy League school through volleyball.' Then I quit when I decided to focus on theater.
None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots.
The American Dream is still alive out there, and hard work will get you there. You don't necessarily need to have an Ivy League education or to have millions of dollars startup money. It can be done with an idea, hard work and determination.
For some students, school is the only place where they get a hot meal and a warm hug. Teachers are sometimes the only ones who tell our children they can go from an Indian reservation to the Ivy League, from the home of a struggling single mom to the White House.
There is no cost difference between incarceration and an Ivy League education; the main difference is curriculum.