The Capone gang was actually a public utility; it supplied what the people wanted and demanded.

It does not matter what you know about anything if you cannot communicate to your people. In that event, you are not even a failure. You're just not there.

To the organizer, compromise is a key and beautiful word. It is always present in the pragmatics of operation... If you start with nothing, demand 100 percent, then compromise for 30 percent, you're 30 percent ahead.

My only fixed truth is a belief in people: a conviction that if people have the opportunity to act freely and the power to control their own destinies, they'll generally reach the right decisions.

All change means disorganization of the old and organization of the new.

Radicals must be resilient, adaptable to shifting political circumstances, and sensitive enough to the process of action and reaction to avoid being trapped by their own tactics and forced to travel a road not of their choosing. In short, radicals must have a degree of control over the flow of events.

No politician can sit on a hot issue if you make it hot enough.

Everybody owned stock in the Capone mob; in a way, he was a public benefactor. I remember one time when he arrived at his box seat in Dyche Stadium for a Northwestern football game on Boy Scout Day, and 8,000 scouts got up in the stands and screamed in cadence, 'Yea, yea, Big Al. Yea, yea, Big Al.'

I've never joined any organization - not even the ones I've organized myself. I prize my own independence too much.

The first step in community organization is community disorganization.