Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

At the very last moment, Nature would force you to blink your eye. Nature will protect her own.

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.

Being white is a job in America. You take that away, you better get the soldiers out.

Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.

White folks are the luckiest people: Finally a black president and he's a behaved one. Went to the best schools, best colleges, never raises his voice. I ran for president in 1968. I tell (audiences) if I won, I would have dug up the Rose Garden and planted watermelon!

If all you can do is judge a person by their appearance, because you don't have the spirit to judge someone from within, you're in trouble.