Moral power is probably best when it is not used. The less you use it the more you have.

We think it is complicated to change the world. Change comes little by little. Nothing worthwhile can happen in one generation.

Influence is like a savings account, the less you use it, the more you've got

My solutions are to include Africa in the global economy, and not African charity, AIDS research, but African infrastructure development. And I think that Africa can import and needs everything the whole world can manufacture. And they have got enough money to pay for it. It's just that the money is in the ground.

I was much more comfortable and a much better congressman running in a district that was 37 percent black, where I had to have a white constituency to get elected, than I would have been if I was in a 75 percent black district.

What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion, but slavery was a $3 billion asset.

I was raised that way: don't get mad, get smart.