The happy Union of these States is a wonder; their Constitution a miracle; their example the hope of Liberty throughout the world.

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.

If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door.

Experience is what you have after you've forgotten her name.

Money can't buy you happiness, but it helps you look for it in a lot more places.

A committee is a group that keeps minutes and loses hours.

We owe a lot to Thomas Edison - if it wasn't for him, we'd be watching television by candlelight.

Now a 'funnyman' can get a laugh before opening his mouth - looking funny. Lou Costello was one of your great funnymen. Harry Langdon, Larry Semon; they were all funnymen - they looked funny. W.C. Fields was never a comedian. Slim Summerville was a comedian, yet looked funny. Now if you have both attributes, you are in good shape.

You can lead a man to Congress, but you can't make him think.

If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?

Pirates almost never sailed with women. Just four or five are known to have worked as pirates during the Golden Age. Two of them - Mary Read and Anne Bonny - became famous, dressing as men and fighting alongside one of the most celebrated of all pirate captains, 'Calico' Jack Rackham.

So many of the pleasures of recreational scuba diving don't exist for the deep wreck diver. It's not beautiful scenery for the most part; in fact, it's usually very dark. It's physically burdensome. These guys carry almost two hundred pounds of equipment, and should any of that equipment fail, they risk death.

Pirate ships were built for stealth and invisibility. They filed no manifests with any agency or government. When they went missing or sunk, nobody went looking for them. They simply disappeared into the ether.

Pirates did not store all their treasures in treasure chests, then bury them and draw maps to them. That's a movie invention. In reality, pirates spent their money as fast as they could steal it because they knew they were living on borrowed time. They didn't want to wait around to enjoy the money.

It's never too late in life to have a genuine adventure.

If you don't ask, you don't get.

Mama was my greatest teacher, a teacher of compassion, love and fearlessness. If love is sweet as a flower, then my mother is that sweet flower of love.

I am what I am. I love me! And I don't mean that egotistically - I love that God has allowed me to take whatever it was that I had and to make something out of it.

God gave me life to continue to do things that I would never have done.

Time is long but life is short.

What I'm not confused about is the world needing much more love, no hate, no prejudice, no bigotry and more unity, peace and understanding. Period.

Do you know, it's funny, but I never thought of being blind as a disadvantage, and I never thought of being black as a disadvantage.

Ya gots to work with what you gots to work with.

The failure to invest in youth reflects a lack of compassion and a colossal failure of common sense.

My story is a freedom song of struggle. It is about finding one's purpose, how to overcome fear and to stand up for causes bigger than one's self.

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.

My story is a freedom song from within my soul. It is a guide to discovery, a vision of how even the worst pain and heartaches can be channeled into human monuments, impenetrable and everlasting.

Nelson Mandela sat in a South African prison for 27 years. He was nonviolent. He negotiated his way out of jail. His honor and suffering of 27 years in a South African prison is really ultimately what brought about the freedom of South Africa. That is nonviolence.

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don't believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

Revenge and retaliation always perpetuate the cycle of anger, fear and violence.

When fear rushed in, I learned how to hear my heart racing but refused to allow my feelings to sway me. That resilience came from my family. It flowed through our bloodline.

I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes - the finer things of life - would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

Non-violence is a permanent attitude we bring to the breakfast table and bring to bed at night.

As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder and assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses... An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.

Something is wrong that we have to feed so many. Why should there be poverty with all of our science and technology? There is no deficit in human resources - it is a deficit in human will.

The Voting Rights Act was, and still is, vitally important to the future of democracy in the United States.

The woman power of this nation can be the power which makes us whole and heals the rotten community, now so shattered by war and poverty and racism. I have great faith in the power of women who will dedicate themselves whole-heartedly to the task of remaking our society.

Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.

Our Congress passes laws which subsidize corporation farms, oil companies, airlines, and houses for suburbia. But when they turn their attention to the poor, they suddenly become concerned about balancing the budget and cut back on the funds for Head Start, Medicare, and mental health appropriations.

Before I was married to Martin and became a King, I was a proud Scott, shaped by my mother's discernment and my father's strength.

On Thanksgiving Night, 1942, when I was fifteen years old, white racists burned our house to the ground.

Gay and lesbian people have families, and their families should have legal protection, whether by marriage or civil union.

Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become.

A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing to protect traditional marriages.

If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children.

Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.

I believe that women know if their husbands are unfaithful. They feel it.

Real success is not on the stage, but off the stage as a human being, and how you get along with your fellow man.

I wasn't anything special as a father. But I loved them and they knew it.

I hadn't been in Vegas 20 minutes when I got word that the bookmakers were offering three to one that Frank wouldn't show for my wedding.