An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values count. Speech, New York City, December 12, 1983

The denial of emotion is a terrible thing; what takes time is learning that the positive path is the education of emotion, not it's uncritical indulgence, which actually locks us far more firmly in our mutual isolation. Likewise, the denial of rights is a terrible thing; and what takes time to learn is that the opposite of oppression is not a wilderness of litigation and reparation but the nurture of concrete, shared respect.

The future success of our nation depends on our ability to understand the difference between right and wrong and to have the strength of character to make the right choices.

Success is the power to acquire whatever one demands of life without violating the rights of others.

No greater wrong can ever be done than to put a good man at the mercy of a bad, while telling him not to defend himself or his fellows; in no way can the success of evil be made surer or quicker.

If you tried to right all the wrongs in the world you'd exhaust yourself in under an hour.

truth, she didn't care for rules of any sort; rules made little sense to a person who had grown up in a world without compassion or pity, where there was no moral code by which to abide.

Haylin was given a good talking-to by the headmaster and made to write a paper about workers' rights, which he considered a privilege rather than a punishment. He was obligated to write ten pages, and handed in a tome of nearly fifty pages instead, duly footnoted, quoting from Thomas Paine and FDR. He couldn't wait for the next decade. Everything would change in the sixties, he told Franny. And, if they were lucky, they would then be free.

he thought of Jesus as a great teacher, a rebel who refused to see the poor and disenfranchised mistreated.

Why should the killers of the world be the future and not us?

Just cause I love her don't take away none of her rights.

The defeat that had frightened her in the faces of black men was the defeat of black forever defined by white.