My parents taught me that racial prejudice is a sin, one that robs the world of great minds and talents.

My entire life has been devoted to breaking down barriers, to finding common ground.

Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.

I spent many years working for voting rights, but we still see sophisticated efforts, led by white officials, to disenfranchise black voters in local and national elections.

Election victories are a harvest. You plant the seed. For months or years, you water and tend them. In the election season, you reap the harvest.

Politics is not a tea party. When it is time to act, you have to move fast and decisively.

You can't say the negro left the Republican party; the negro feels he was evicted from the Republican party.

In elective politics, it's up or out. You go up the ladder, or you get out of the game.

To stand still is to regress.

Historically we have rejected extremism on the left and the right. Centrism is the right course for America.

The member of Congress who forgets his constituents' needs usually serves only one term.

Once your baby tree is in the ground, check it daily, because the first three years are critical. Remember that you are your tree's only friend in a hostile world.

Today he failed to change the world. As for tomorrow, who can tell?

Peace is a very complicated concept. When the lion gobbles up the lamb and wipes his lips, then there's peace. Well, I ain't for that peace at all.

Seventy years of ad-lib material, and I am speechless.

People of integrity and honesty not only practice what they preach, they are what they preach.

Everything in life is arbitrary yet must be over-determined in literature. Jean McGarry knows how to tell a persuasive tale illuminating these truths.

It is our destiny to be born beautiful into an ugly age.

The wise man is seldom prudent.

Invention is a flower, innovation is a weed.

The Ukrainian opposition should adopt democratic unity as its main principle, and it also must have one leader.