It is a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

There is a sense in which the United States Ambassador speaks to the United States, as well as for the United States. I have always seen my role as a thermostat, rather than a thermometer. So I'm going to be actively working... for my own concerns. I have always had people advise me on what to say, but never on what not to say.

Some kind of affirmative action is important in a democracy and for economic competitiveness and national security. The Army was the first to realize that you had to have desegregation of a military to have it working properly.

The unsung heroes of the civil rights movement were always the wives and the mothers.

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.

Bill [Clinton] is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack.

Look at those they call unfortunate and at a closer view, you'll find many of them are unwise.