With remarkable consistency the prophets, who depict God's anger in painfully vivid ways, allow us to see anger as a proper response to human injustice, the terrible wrongs we inflict on others, especially on those least able to defend themselves.

There is only one form of political strategy in which I have any confidence, and that is to try to do the right thing and sometimes be able to succeed.

Democracy is not a tearing down; it is a building up. It does not denial of the divine right of kings; it asserts the divine right of all men.

In the time that we're here today, more women and children will die violently in the Darfur region than in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Israel or Lebanon. So, after September 30, you won't need the UN - you will simply need men with shovels and bleached white linen and headstones.

We hand folks over to God's mercy, and show none ourselves.

His calls for justice were lost at the mercy of the wind and human indifference.

When talking about human rights, in truth we're referring to men's rights. If a man is beaten and deprived of his freedom, it's called torture. When a woman endures the same, it's called domestic violence and is still considered a private matter in most of the world.

It was then that I understood that the days of Colonel Garcia and all those like him are numbered, because they have not been able to destroy the spirit of these women.

It was an election year and there was reason for concern over the turn of events. The country was waking up. The wave of discontent that was stirring the people was beginning to strike at the heart of that oligarchic society.

Life was beautiful, and America was truly "the land of the free and the home of the brave," a land where someone like Gregory could become President; all you had to do was stay pure of heart, love God and your mother, be forever faithful to one girl, respect the law, defend the weak, and scorn money—because heroes never expected to be compensated.

'Mean to' don't pick no cotton.

Now the trumpet summons us again - not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though embattled we are; but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, 'rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation', a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself.