We picked their cotton. We cooked their food. We nursed their babies. Now we can run their cities. We can run their states. We will run the country.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.

We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up.

I preach nonviolence because it's the better alternative.

You are not going to revive the unemployment of 26 million Americans with tax cuts.

Dream big dreams! Others may deprive you of your material wealth and cheat you in a thousand ways, but no man can deprive you of the control and use of your imagination. Men may deal with you unfairly, as men often do; they may deprive you of your liberty; but they cannot take from you the privilege of using your imagination. In your imagination you always win!

When I was a boy we were poor and we had to make do with what we had. So my grandma used to make us quits that we used for blankets. She couldn't afford to go to the store and buy a blanket -- so she'd take scraps of cloth and sew them together. there'd be different colors and different patterns and different types of cloth -- but they all went together to make that big quilt to keep us warm.