When we're unemployed, we're called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it's called a depression.

If you run, you might lose. If you don't run, you're guaranteed to lose.

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.

America is not a blanket woven from one thread, one color, one cloth.

Success needs no explanation. Failure does not have one that matters.

If you don't know what tomorrow holds, you need to know who holds tomorrow!

It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

If there are occasions when my grape turned into a raisin and my joy bell lost its resonance, please forgive me. Charge it to my head and not to my heart.

Leadership cannot just go along to get along. Leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day.

Deliberation and debate is the way you stir the soul of our democracy.

I am not a perfect servant. I am a public servant doing my best against the odds. As I develop and serve, be patient. God is not finished with me yet.

Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things.

If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.

In politics, an organized minority is a political majority.

I was born in a slum, but the slum wasn't born in me.

Today's students can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. If they can conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but their attitude that will determine their altitude.

Your children need your presence more than your presents.

Keep hope alive!

What is the American dream? The American dream is one big tent. One big tent. And on that big tent you have four basic promises: equal protection under the law, equal opportunity, equal access, and fair share.

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward by fear and division.

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.

If you fall behind, run faster. Never give up, never surrender, and rise up against the odds.