Andrew Young Quotes

One individual can begin a movement that turns the tide of history. Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement, Mohandas Ganhi in India, Nelson Mandela in South Africa are examples of people standing up with courage and non-violence to bring about needed changes.

People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don't do this and don't do that. But it's hard to live up to some people's expectations.

What is my calling? What am I supposed to do? I think running for office, public office, can be a divine calling. I mean, I've wrestled with that very question myself.

There are many people making a difference. I mean, Dr. King never held an office. Gandhi never held an office. There are people who are archetypes in our society who have never held office and made a difference.

I grew up in the sixties watching B.B. King and Tito Puente and Miles Davis and Coltrane, everybody, Marvin Gaye, Jimi. And at the same time, with my left eye I was watching Dolores Huerta, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Mother Teresa.

I grew up reading Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

Dr. King, if he were alive today, probably would simply be a minister, a pastor. His initial intent was, indeed, just to be a preacher. He didn't have any egotistical desire or need to be a public figure or celebrity. He got drafted - or, really, dragged into it - initially in Montgomery.

My friends in the Congress, I have known Coretta King since I went south during the civil rights movement as a lawyer. She was a vibrant, consistent, totally dedicated partner with her husband.

Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

Directors didn't know what to do with me in college. I didn't really sound like a belter. I didn't look like a soprano. But in New York, I was in the right place at the right time, where my unusualness fit the bill.

Visions are worth fighting for. Why spend your life making someone else's dreams?

Dr. King is so inspiring, so impressive, so moving as a human being.

Some great people are leaders and others are more lucky, in the right place at the right time. I'd put myself in the latter category. But I'd never call myself a normal designer of anything.

We may very well be making history here ... in the presence of the man who is entrusted with the banner of American liberty that was taken from Lincoln when he was shot 95 years ago … Dr. King was almost stabbed to death, has been shot at, has been arrested more often than anybody in the United States, south and north … Dr. King’s life at this moment is in just as great danger as was Lincoln’s. And he has to walk with care if he is to continue to lead this crusade

I want you to leave here with a sense of mission. Martin Luther King is waiting for you to march with him.

Reading the Martin Luther King story, that little comic book, set me on the path that I'm on today.

I couldn't say no to A. Philip Randolph and no to Martin Luther King, Jr. These two men, I loved them, I admired them, and they were my heroes.

I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.

Following the teaching of Gandhi and Thoreau, Dr. King, it set me on a path. And I never looked back.

The action of Rosa Parks, the words and leadership of Dr. King inspired me. I was deeply inspired. I wanted to do something.

I'm very happy doing what I do. And if I were in the White House I would be really interested in continuing to do what I do, which is working… That's a very cold answer, I guess, but I was trying to answer in terms of ambition.

I am always mission driven, and I always ask myself what I want to be working on, what project excites me the most. I figure that out and then find the best place to do that work.

There was absolutely no pressure from the family. It was my choice to pursue a career in music. I always wanted to do music, which has been close to heart. In fact, I was dead sure about it.

Even at the age of 12, I knew I had to become a bodybuilder. I don't know why or how, but I just knew.

What can we be in life? Few figures in history have answered this question with as much clarity and moral authority as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.