To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.

Above all, being a Democrat means having compassion for others. ... It means standing up for people who have been kept down.

I didn't used to care about living a long time. Not that I wasn't enjoying life, but I never sat around asking how I'd get to be 100, you know. But now I want to live long enough to see every school child in the world getting a good, nutritious lunch every day.

Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction 'Love the neighbor as thyself.'

I didn't know a damned thing about mental illness and neither did anyone around me.

I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it.

I am 1,000 percent for Tom Eagleton and I have no intention of dropping him from the ticket.