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.

American public opinion is like an ocean, it cannot be stirred by a teaspoon.

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

Our opposition will never understand the Democratic Party. Our Party is--to the unpracticed eyes of the old Republican Tories--a mysterious contraption that usually seems to be moving in a thousand directions. What they don't know is what hurts them. For all that movement in the Democratic Party is caused by the internal combustion of creative ferment, of ideas, of people vigorously committed to the proposition that change and social progress are not only to be desired; they are necessities of twentieth-century America.

I am not here to judge whether people are locked in poverty because of themselves or because of the society in which they live. All I know is that they are there and we are trying to do something about it.

It is always a risk to speak to the press: they are likely to report what you say.

If I believe in something, I will fight for it, with all I have. But I do not demand all or nothing. I would rather get something than nothing.