We will have to decide today whether we will design the future or resign ourselves to it.

When the dignity of one person is denied, all of us are denied.

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

The moral test of a society is how that society treats those who are in the dawn of life: the children; ... the elderly.

It is all too easy for a society to measure itself against some abstract philosophical principle or political slogan. But in the end, there must remain the question: What kind of life is one society providing to the people that live in it?

I have seen in the Halls of Congress more idealism, more humanness, more compassion, more profiles of courage than in any other institution that I have ever known.

History teaches us that the great revolutions aren't started by people who are utterly down and out, without hope and vision. They take place when people begin to live a little better - and when they see how much yet remains to be achieved.