What we have to be judged by is the work we try to do. It's public service, not perfect service.

Urban America has been redlined. Government has not offered tax incentives for investment, as it has in a dozen foreign markets. Banks have redlined it. Industries have moved out, they've redlined it. Clearly, to break up the redlining process, there must be incentives to green-line with hedges against risk.

I'm a Third World person. I grew up in an occupied zone [Greenville, South Carolina] and had to negotiate with the superpower, really the colonial power.

The white Christian church never raised to the heights of Christ. It stayed within the limit of culture.

We live on the dash between our birth date and our death date.

Why would anyone be able to make $21 million not showing up for work for a single day? That is vulgar capitalism. That is not good for the nation.

We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up. Jesus said that we should not be judged by the bark we wear but by the fruit that we bear. Jesus said that we must measure greatness by how we treat the least of these.