There is a strong moralistic strain in the civil rights movement that would remind us that power corrupts, forgetting that the absence of power also corrupts.

God does not require us to achieve any of the good tasks that humanity must pursue. What God requires of us is that we not stop trying.

Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.

People will never fight for your freedom if you have not given evidence that you are prepared to fight for it yourself.

If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end.

Every indifference to prejudice is suicide because, if I don’t fight all bigotry, bigotry itself will be strengthened and, sooner or later, it will return on me.

If anyone thinks they're going to get anything out of the Reagan administration for any particular group, they're wrong! You have to all combine and fight a head-on battle - in the name of justice and equality - and even that's going to be difficult. But if we let ourselves get separated so that we're working for gays or school children or the aged, we're in trouble.