“The poor suffer twice at the rioter’s hands. First, his destructive fury scars their neighborhood; second, the atmosphere of accommodation and consent is changed to one of hostility and resentment.”

Better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.

It’s too bad, but the way American people are, now that they have all this capability, instead of taking advantage of it, they’ll probably just piss it all away.

But if future generations are to remember us more with gratitude than with sorrow, we must achieve more than just the miracles of technology. We must also leave them a glimpse of the world as God really made it, not just as it looked when we got through with it.

Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact.

All men are created equal’, ‘government by consent of the governed’, ‘give me liberty or give me death’. Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories.

It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.

If you have a mother-in-law with only one eye and she has it in the center of her forehead, don’t keep her in the living room.

Education will not cure all the problems of society, but without it no cure for any problem is possible.

Of course, I may go into a strange bedroom every now and then that I don’t want you to write about, but otherwise you can write everything.

If we must disagree, let’s disagree without being disagreeable.

To hunger for use and to go unused is the worst hunger of all.

I will not seek, and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

Let us close the springs of racial poison. Let us pray for wise and understanding hearts. Let us lay aside irrelevant differences and make our nation whole.

When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.

Masculine anger is always because you are feeling constrained, trapped by life. Feminine anger is always because you are feeling unloved.

Can I doubt the shape of the earth? Can I judge a minute for lasting sixty seconds, a day for being grey or cold and leaves for falling from trees? Can I speak too loud when I am angry or stay quiet when I disagree? Can I forget about the norms and make some of my own?

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason.

Nothing appeases an enraged elephant so much as the sight of a little lamb.

In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity; the struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish.

Spiritual practice is the capacity to offer your love even when you feel hurt, closed down, tense, angry, misunderstood, or hated.

Let the enemy rage at the gate; let him knock, pound, scream, howl; let him do his worst. We know for certain that he cannot enter our soul except by the door of our consent.

If, when stung by slander or ill-nature, we wax proud and swell with anger, it is a proof that our gentleness and humility are unreal, and mere artificial show.