The ultimate test of a nation's character is not how it responds to adversity in war but how it meets the challenge of peace.

Defeat doesn't finish a man, quit does.

But more than anything else, we have learned that legal assistance for the poor, when properly provided, is one of the most constructive ways to help them help themselves.

You have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this all while not appearing to.

People are persuaded by reason, but moved by emotion; [the leader] must both persuade them and move them.

Let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America.

I don't think that a leader can control, to any great extent, his destiny. Very seldom can he step in and change the situation if the forces of history are running in another direction.