I have never cared too much what people say. What I am interested in is what they do.

There is a good deal of evidence that the United States is moving to the right, and that the main force behind the movement is a resurgence, in a new form, of racial prejudice.

Defeat should not be the source of discouragement, but a stimulus to keep plotting.

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.

Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power.

One distressing thing is the way men react to women who assert their equality: their ultimate weapon is to call them unfeminine. They think she is anti-male; they even whisper that she's probably a lesbian.

That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.