We must make it clear that a platform of ‚I hate gay men and women‘ is not a way to become president of the United States.

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now a black person can say, ‚Oh, you know, I can use this word because I’m black.‘

I cannot possibly believe that I have it made while so many black brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their dignity as they live in slums or barely exist on welfare.

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixteen were compelled to carry ‚Native passes‘ issued by the Native Affairs Department and were required to show that pass to any white policeman, civil servant, or employer. Failure to do so could mean arrest, trial, a jail sentence or fine.

The day will come – and it is not far off – when the legacy of Lincoln will finally be fulfilled at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when a black man or woman will sit in the Oval Office. When that day comes, the most remarkable thing about it will be how naturally it occurs.

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.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

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

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

I’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or ‚our‘ country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits where I have not shared and probably will not share.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed; you see something that you can’t un-see.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

I love the women’s movement, and I never thought of it as belonging to any particular segment of the population.

Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn’t say I lived in a ghetto; I’d say I lived in the ‚hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now.

It’s a facet of the gay rights movement that people don’t think about enough. Why suddenly marriage equality? Because it wasn’t until 1981 that the court struck down Louisiana’s ‚head and master rule,‘ that the husband was head and master of the house.

The titanic effort that has brought liberation to South Africa, and ensured the total liberation of Africa, constitutes an act of redemption for the black people of the world.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

All I can say is I am sensitive to discrimination on any basis because I have experienced that upset.

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

We must begin seeing other creatures as equal. Existence makes us all equal.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.

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.

The world at large is less inequitable today than at any time in history. Number of people in abject poverty, as a percentage, is at all-time low.

I think many people in my community had very different kinds of mothers: they had mothers who acquiesced in the system of male and white-supremacist domination, and my mother never did. She just could not do it. It just wasn’t in her.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

All men are equal before fish.

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

White people just don’t want their slaves to be free. That’s the whole thing.

I think everybody deserves an equal amount of appreciation whether how old they are, but I mean, I’m cool with the praise. I’m good.

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it’s one that’s easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

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.

At the Carter Center we work with victims of oppression, and we give support to human rights heroes.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.