Andrew Young

Influence is like a savings account, the less you use it, the more you've got.

Theres no problem on the planet that cant be solved without violence. Thats the lesson of the civil rights movement.

Everybody in America has been dependent on the government at some time. We owe everybody in America the right to vote and access to capital. What I say is, let's make America work, let's make democracy and free enterprise work for everybody.

Wishing of all strategies, is the worst.

When people ask where I studied to be an ambassador, I say my neighborhood and my school. I've tried to tell my kids that you don't wait until you're in high school or college to start dealing with problems of people being different. The younger you start, the better.

I've always seen the Olympics as a place where you could act out your differences on the athletic field with a sense of sportsmanship and fairness and mutual respect.

If you're a preacher, you talk for a living, so even if you don't make sense, you learn to make nonsense eloquently.

Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision making.

To find people who don't want anything is rare.

Look at those they call unfortunate and at a closer view, you'll find many of them are unwise.

To whom much is given, much is required - not expected, but required.

The unsung heroes of the civil rights movement were always the wives and the mothers.

We've changed in the sense that we flipped - and this is no longer the Republican party of Lincoln. This is the party of suppression.

We think it is complicated to change the world. Change comes little by little. Nothing worthwhile can happen in one generation.

I tried. But not everybody thought so.

Egypt's problem is that you've got an economy that works for about 40 million people, only you have 90 million people. The answer to the Egyptian problem is not guns, but jobs. We've got to find a private-sector, nongovernmental, aggressive way of creating jobs. That's not America's role totally.

I was raised that way: don't get mad, get smart.

Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fool reform, and mortal men lay hold on heaven.

Violence is not more efficient than non-violence.

There's no problem on the planet that can't be solved without violence. That's the lesson of the civil rights movement.

My hope for my children must be that they respond to the still, small voice of God in their own hearts.

We rise in glory as we sink in pride.

In a sane, civil, intelligent and moral society, you don't blame poor people for being poor.

One of the principles of nonviolence is that you leave your opponents whole and better off than you found them.

You have to start living for something that's worth dying for.

The two are not mutually exclusive, but we think we can have wealth without good ideas and without values and without a clear vision. Wealth without vision is insanity.

Everything that has happened in my life is because of good government and because the United States of America was the greatest nation on the face of the earth.

I've been dyslexic and had Attention Deficit Disorder at some time in my life. I still read with a highlighter, but I've always loved to read.

President Jimmy Carter was a citizen soldier. Ironically, he was considered weak because he didn't kill anybody and he didn't get anyone killed.

It stands to reason that unloved and unwanted children are going to get into crime.

Freedom is a struggle, and we do it together. Not only together as black citizens, but black and white together.

If Congress can move President's Day, Columbus Day and, alas, Martin Luther King's Birthday celebration for the convenience of shoppers, shouldn't they at least consider moving Election Day for the convenience of voters?

Surely, if we can land a spaceship on Mars, we can certainly put a voter ID card in the hand of every eligible voter.

I have committed my life to helping the poor, and I believe that if more companies followed Wal-Mart's lead in providing opportunity and savings to those who need it most, more Americans battling poverty would realize the American dream.

If I wanted to develop a scenario to destroy America, I would do what the Republicans are doing. Take the brightest and best young black men off the streets, put them in jail, make them meaner than hell for 8 or 10 years and then turn them lose in a society where there are plenty of guns for them to play with.

Having personally watched the Voting Rights Act being signed into law that August day, I can't begin to imagine how we could have all been so wrong in believing that more Americans would vote once they were all truly free to do so.

Some kind of affirmative action is important in a democracy and for economic competitiveness and national security. The Army was the first to realize that you had to have desegregation of a military to have it working properly.

Profits should be for a purpose. Profits should be productive. You should make money for producing benefits that make the world a better place. Making money is a good thing when it is made in service to humanity or the democracy.

Slavery didn't break up the black families as much as liberal welfare rules.

The commercialization of sport is the democratization of sport.

Most of my teachers wanted to send me to the principal's office. But my fourth-grade teacher once put her arms around me and said, 'You sure write well.' And I've had good penmanship until this day. She was the only one who ever said anything nice to me. That's the kind of motivation that students need.

Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it.

Nobody black had learned anything from the 'Letter from the Birmingham Jail' or from the 'I Have a Dream' speech. That was a revelation of white people.

Influence is like a savings account. The less you use it, the more you've got.

Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life.

There can be no democracy without truth. There can be no truth without controversy, there can be no change without freedom. Without freedom there can be no progress.

It is a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

What we forget is that African Americans made the largest contribution to America, economically, before the Civil War of any sector of society. I read that the railroads were worth about $2 billion, but slavery was a $3 billion asset.

No one who's white thinks he's innocent. No one who's black thinks he's guilty.

In a world where change is inevitable and continuous, the need to achieve that change without violence is essential for survival.

I believe in humanitarian capitalism, and there are good people on Wall Street.

I have about concluded that wealth is a state of mind, and that anyone can acquire a wealthy state of mind by thinking rich thoughts.

I'm against voter fraud in any form, and I have long supported a national voter ID card. But ID cards need not - and must not - restrict voting rights in any way, shape or form.

I like my life. I've had a good life. I think the reason is my parents taught me that life is a burden. But if you take it one day at a time, it's an easy burden.

You have to expect that if you cuss out the world the world is going to cuss back.

Once the Xerox copier was invented, diplomacy died.

On the soft bed of luxury many kingdoms have expired.

Look at those they call unfortunate and at a closer view, you'll find many of them are unwise.

Moral power is probably best when it is not used. The less you use it the more you have.