Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

When I look back on what I did for the Left, I’m in a small way quite proud of some of it – I only wish I’d done more.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It’s very clear.

I have always fought for concrete facts, for justice.

All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‚race‘ – the human race – and that we are all members of it.

The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men.

For me, my secularism is, India first. I say, the philosophy of my party is ‚Justice to all. Appeasement to none.‘ This is our secularism.

A good wife is one who serves her husband in the morning like a mother does, loves him in the day like a sister does and pleases him like a prostitute in the night.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Nothing can make injustice just but mercy.

Justice is a temporary thing that must at last come to an end; but the conscience is eternal and will never die.

The assertion that ‚all men are created equal‘ was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.

So many killings of black men in my lifetime. The physical shock is astounding.

In my work and in myself I reflect black people, women and men, as I reflect others. One day even the most self-protective ones will look into the mirror I provide and not be afraid.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

Coming generations will learn equality from poverty, and love from woes.

We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter – and to write it in the books of law.

A strong man doesn’t have to be dominant toward a woman. He doesn’t match his strength against a woman weak with love for him. He matches it against the world.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.

No cause justifies the deaths of innocent people.

I am involved in a freedom ride protesting the loss of the minority rights belonging to the few remaining earthbound stars. All we demanded was our right to twinkle.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

I feel very happy to be living in Berkeley because there are a lot of people who are politically active here.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

I love diversity.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.

We should not say that one man’s hour is worth another man’s hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time’s carcass.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

Not to help justice in her need would be an impiety.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

My music fights against the system that teaches to live and die.

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.

If segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate today, I would not be a top contender to be president of the United States.

Due process should matter.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I’m a warrior for the middle class.

We are all alike, on the inside.

It is impossible to struggle for civil rights, equal rights for blacks, without including whites. Because equal rights, fair play, justice, are all like the air: we all have it, or none of us has it. That is the truth of it.

Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction.

Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the foundation of all actions.

God made and governs the world invisibly, and has commanded us to love and worship him and no other God; to honor our parents and masters, and love our neighbours as ourselves; and to be temperate, just, and peaceable, and to be merciful even to brute beasts.

That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.