The ugliness of bigotry stands in direct contradiction to the very meaning of America.

Fortunately, the time has long passed when people liked to regard the United States as some kind of melting pot, taking men and women from every part of the world and converting them into standardized, homogenized Americans. We are, I think, much more mature and wise today. Just as we welcome a world of diversity, so we glory in an America of diversity -- an America all the richer for the many different and distinctive strands of which it is woven.

I've never thought my speeches were too long; I've rather enjoyed them.

We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit.

We are in danger of making our cities places where business goes on but where life, in its real sense, is lost.

The ugliness of bigotry stands in direct contradiction to the very meaning of America.

And it is to these rights - the right of law and order, the right of life, the right of liberty, the right of a job, the right of a home in a decent neighborhood, and the right to an education - it is to these rights that I pledge my life and whatever capacity and ability I have.