I am a freeman, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat, in that order.

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

Doing the right thing is not the problem. Knowing what the right thing is, that's the challenge.

Sometimes among our more sophisticated, self-styled intellectuals--and I say self-styled advisedly; the real intellectual I am notsure would ever feel this way--some of them are more concerned with appearance than they are with achievement. They are more concerned with style then they are with mortar, brick and concrete. They are more concerned with trivia and the superficial than they are with the things that have really built America.

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he's going to get sick on it.

Every citizen, regardless of his race, creed, or color, is entitled to equal justice.

The fifth freedom is freedom from ignorance.