Until racial justice and freedom is a reality in this land, our union will remain profoundly imperfect.
We will be remembered not for the power of our weapons but for the power of our compassion, our dedication to human welfare.
If today there is a proper American “sphere of influence” it is this fragile sphere called earth upon which all men live and share a common fate – a sphere where our influence must be for peace and justice.
None of us would trade freedom of expression for the narrowness of the public censor. America is a free market for people who have something to say, and need not fear to say it.
We will have to decide today whether we will design the future or resign ourselves to it.
The measure of a civilization is how it treats those at the dawn of life, the margins of life and the twilight of life.
I wish to suggest that ample opportunity does exist for dissent, for protest, and for nonconformity. But I must also say that the right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
It the Senator can find in Title VII any language which provides that an employer will have to hire on the basis of percentage or quota related to color, race, religion, or national origin, I will start eating the pages one after another, because it is not in there.
You cannot tell a poor boy from a small country town on the plains of South Dakota who has had the opportunity to be a teacher, a mayor, a senator, and a vice president, that America is not a nation of promise.
Peace of mind is another way of saying that you’ve learned how to love, that you have come to appreciate the importance of giving love in order to be worthy of receiving it.
In the minds and hearts of the American people, there is a great hunger for peace based on a universal recognition of the values of freedom and human dignity.
The leadership for civil rights has to take place in the White House or it is going to take place in the streets.
Like many things in our national life, we miscalculated. We overestimated our ability to control events, which is one of the great dangers of a great power. Power tends to be a substitute for judgment and wisdom.
You can’t hoot with the owls and then soar with the eagles.
My favorite sandwich is peanut butter, baloney, cheddar cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side.
It is better to gain a foot than to stand still, even when you seek to gain a mile.
Before people will do anything, they have got to eat. And if you are really looking for a way for people to lean on you and to be dependent on you, in terms of their cooperation with you, it seems to me that food dependence would be terrific.
Much of our American progress has been the product of the individual who had an idea; pursued it; fashioned it; tenaciously clung to it against all odds; and then produced it, sold it, and profited from it.
We cannot use a double standard for measuring our own and other people’s policies. Our demands for democratic practices in other lands will be no more effective than the guarantees of those practiced in our own country.
When the dignity of one person is denied, all of us are denied.