We cannot legislate equality but we can legislate ... equal opportunity for all.

I realized that public affairs were also my affairs. I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on.

Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by how one thinks and acts.

You can't prove you're an American by waving Old Glory.

The first step toward liberation of any group is to use the power in hand... And the power in hand is the vote.

If you tell me that there are obstacles in the way of your ambition that make it impossible to pursue, then I know it's not a real ambition. There are always obstacles. The 'perversity of events,' as someone once called it, is always ready to lick us. Events are never right for achieving what we most want to achieve. If this were not so, there would be no real fun in being 17 -- or even in being alive.

You cannot barter security for freedom, or freedom for security.