The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a dunce or a rogue.

I regard it as a tragedy that people of a differing sexual orientation find themselves proscribed in a world that has so little understanding for homosexuals and that displays such gross indifference for sexual gradations and variations and the great significance they have for living. It is completely foreign to me to wish to regard such people as less valuable, less moral, incapable of noble sentiments and behavior.

We say that if America has entered the war to make the world safe for democracy, she must first make democracy safe in America.

Sure, nothing succeeds like success. Fact is, dearest, we are fools. We cling to an ideal no one wants or cares about. I am the greater fool of the two of us. I go on eating out my heart and poisoning every moment of my life in the attempt to rouse people's sensibilities. At least if I could do it with closed eyes. The irony is I see the futility of my efforts and yet I can't let go.

Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks.

If not for the direct action of a John Brown and his comrades, America would still trade in the flesh of the black man.

There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another ... All human experience teaches that methods and means cannot be separated from the ultimate aim.