“In this sense the Negro problem is not only America's greatest failure but also America's incomparably great opportunity for the future. If America should follow its own deepest convictions, its well-being at home would be increased directly. At the same time America's prestige and power abroad would rise immensely.”

“This country would not be a land of opportunity, America could not be America, if the people were shackled with government monopolies.”

“It is also a fact that America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the use of America's power, especially its capacity for military intimidation. Never before has a populist democracy attained international supremacy. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being. The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the human sacrifice (casualties, even among professional soldiers) required in the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.”

“To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President I must put the interests of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.”

“I think the greatest taboos in America are faith and failure.”

“America is a democracy and has no Hitler, but I am afraid for her future; there are hard times ahead for the American people, troubles will be coming from within and without. America cannot smile away their Negro problem nor Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There are cosmic laws.”

“Despite its increased dependence on the international economy, America continues to behave as if it were either a closed economy or the leader whom everyone else should automatically follow.”

“I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”

“The move from Africa to America was a vast increase of freedom for the Negro, materially and spiritually.”

“Complacency is habit. You in America are born and brought up in a country which is so materialistic in its outlook that complacency is the inevitable result. You are so educated at school and by the media that America becomes the limit of your seeing, your imagination, your sense of the world. It is because America is so big. You have a powerful media service which day after day puts that which is happening in America at the forefront of your consciousness. At school in America you are brought up to salute the flag everyday. This does not happen everywhere. You would not get the national flag saluted by many school children. They would think you were daft. Yet you take it for granted. Also America is so rich compared with many countries that you easily feel in its materialistic atmosphere that you are all right and do not have to think about those abroad. As a young country, you also believe that people have to stand on their own feet and make of life what they can. There is much truth in this but carried to excess it leads to the complacency that threatens world peace.”