If segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate today, I would not be a top contender to be president of the United States.

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.

I’m asking myself, ‚What do my girls, what do all our children deserve in their president? What kind of a president do we want for them?‘ Well, to start with, I think we want someone who is a unifying force in this country: someone who sees our differences not as a threat, but as a blessing.

This President is going to lead us out of this recovery.

I can say with confidence there has never been a man or a woman – not me, not Bill, nobody – more qualified than Hillary Clinton to serve as president of the United States of America.

In a democracy, in a functioning democracy, what would be happening is that popular organizations, unions, political groupings, others would be developing their programs, putting them forth, insisting that their representatives implement those programs.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

Whoever won’t fight when the President calls him, deserves to be kicked back in his hole and kept there.

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn’t be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

A president can ask for reconciliation in the racial conflict that divides Americans. But reconciliation comes only from the hearts of people.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

I think I’d be a better president because I was in combat.

About all I can say for the United States Senate is that it opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation.

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

I think that a president needs to have a variety of views presented. But also, there has to be a team effort, because otherwise, I think it creates a dissonance and difficulty.

Well, I was 29 years old when I came to the United States Senate, and I have learned a lot.

I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America. But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.

There’s nothing in the Constitution that says the President stops being President in his last year.

I grew up in the South under segregation. So, I know what terrorism feels like – when your father could be taken out in the middle of the night and lynched just because he didn’t look like he was in an obeying frame of mind when a white person said something he must do. I mean, that’s terrorism, too.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many ‚bads‘ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‚bad‘ white males. Only, when you write about ‚bad‘ white males, they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‚good‘ blacks, ‚good‘ homosexuals and ‚good‘ women?

I had a soft-spot in my heart for Ronald Reagan, if only because he was a sportswriter in his youth.

In my country we go to prison first and then become President.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality – we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

The man with the best job in the country is the vice-president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, ‚How is the president?‘

The Marine Corps is the Navy’s police force and as long as I am President that is what it will remain. They have a propaganda machine that is almost equal to Stalin’s.

No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

Sometimes I feel like rap music is almost the key to stopping racism.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Do I think faith will be an important part of being a good president? Yes, I do.

I spend a great deal of time with the President. We have a very close, personal, loyal relationship. I’m not, as they say, a potted plant in these meetings.

When I was president, I announced and I still maintain that I can live with Roe v. Wade. I did everything I possibly could as president under that ruling, which I don’t think ought to be changed, to minimize the need for abortions. I think every abortion is a result of a horrible series of errors on the part of people involved.

I’ve seen how the issues that come across a president’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer.

I have no further use for America. I wouldn’t go back there if Jesus Christ was President.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets.

When you are president, being able to clearly articulate detailed plans to help the people of this country is a good thing. Knowing what you’re doing is a good thing. And let me tell you, Hillary Clinton absolutely knows what she’s doing.

Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be Vice President of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend. She is qualified to be President of the United States of America. She’s easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America.

As president, Reagan worked very well with Democrats to do big things. It is true that he worked to reduce the size of government and cut federal taxes and he eliminated many regulations, but he also raised taxes when necessary.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.

I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now a black person can say, ‚Oh, you know, I can use this word because I’m black.‘

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

Trump just looks stupid trying to appeal to blacks and Latinos.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‚President Can’t Swim.‘

The white man is destroying the world.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.

The events of October 1962 are widely hailed as Kennedy’s finest hour.

All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

I admire Ralph Nader and Denis Kucinich very much, and insofar as they bring up issues and carry out an educational and organisational function – that’s important, and fine, and I support it.

Remember, it is not about voting for the perfect candidate – there is no such thing. Presidents are human.

It is the duty of the President to propose and it is the privilege of the Congress to dispose.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

We’re talking about in the Proposition 8 case fundamental rights, civil rights. I offer no apology for the position I took in Prop. 8.