“I believe that, as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.”

Religion is a salve for confusion and misdirection.

Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Ultimately, America’s answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired.

The greatest truth must be recognition that in every man, in every child is the potential for greatness.

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things.

He tells so many lies that he convinces himself after a while that he’s telling the truth. He just doesn’t recognize truth or falsehood.

But suppose God is black? What if we go to Heaven and we, all our lives, have treated the Negro as an inferior, and God is there, and we look up and He is not white? What then is our response?

All of us might wish at times that we lived in a more tranquil world, but we don’t. And if our times are difficult and perplexing, so are they challenging and filled with opportunity.

You knew that what is given or granted can be taken away, that what is begged can be refused; but that what is earned is kept.

GNP measures neither our courage, our wisdom neither our compassion. It measures everything except what makes life worthwhile

The future is not a gift: it is an achievement. Every generation helps make its own future. This is the essential challenge of the present.

Every society gets the kind of criminal it deserves.

What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us.

Nations around the world look to us for the leadership not merely by strength of arms but by strength of our convictions.

Men and women with freed minds may often be mistaken, but they are seldom fooled. They may be influenced, but they cannot be intimidated. They may be perplexed, but they will never be lost.

You have to start by believing in yourself.

The best advice I can give you is to ask yourself what do you want, then ask ‘what is true’ – and then ask yourself ‘what should be done about it.’ I believe that if you do this you will move much faster towards what you want to get out of life than if you don’t!

If you believe you can, you probably can. If you believe you won’t, you most assuredly won’t. Belief is the ignition switch that gets you off the launching pad.

The amateur believes he must first overcome his fear; then he can do his work. The professional knows that fear can never be overcome. He knows there is no such thing as a fearless warrior or a dread-free artist.

Rock has always been the devil’s music… I believe that rock & roll is dangerous… I feel that we’re only heralding something even darker than ourselves.

You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.

I believe we would be happier to have a personal revolution in our individual lives and go back to simpler living and more direct thinking.

I believe that instinct is what makes a genius a genius.