You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.

Evil acts of the past are never rectified by evil acts of the present.

I hear the headlines on the radio, see them on TV and read them in the paper. When I hear from the men out there, I sometimes don't believe they are talking about the same situation.

No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.

But, most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

I once told Nixon that the Presidency is like being a jackass caught in a hail storm. You've got to just stand there and take it.

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