Men are only as great as they are kind.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

If I have advocated the cause of the Negro, it is not because I am a Negro, but because I am a man.

No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to the detection of crime which I have done.

Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for equal rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country, and a finer world to live in.

Justice is a contract of expediency, entered upon to prevent men harming or being harmed.

Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.

It is the evil in man that makes democracy necessary, and man's belief in justice that makes democracy possible.

[E]very human life is a reflection of divinity, and... every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

An Israelite could not have sung the familiar song 'God is so good, God is so good, God is so good, he's so good to me' (though the words echo the Psalms) without being reminded also of its ethical consequence: 'God asks me to show that goodness to others.

For myself, I was bitterly opposed to the measure, and to this day regard the war, which resulted, as one of the most unjust ever waged by a stronger against a weaker nation. It was an instance of a republic following the bad example of European monarchies, in not considering justice in