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.

One of the greatest lessons of my own life was learning to turn the inner rampage of hatred and anger toward my own father for his reprehensible behavior and abandonment of his family into an inner reaction more closely aligned with God and God-realized love.

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

How much better it would be if all could be more aware of God’s providence and love and express that gratitude to Him.

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

God always takes the simplest way.

It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for awhile their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

God proved His love on the Cross. When Christ hung, and bled, and died, it was God saying to the world, ‚I love you.‘

People don’t want drama 365 days a year. I’m a sense of relief; it’s my job to take your mind off what’s bad for that brief second you’re in the room with me, regardless of shape, race, colour or anything. It brings people together, and it makes me feel good about what I’m doing.

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

Wanting to feel good is synonymous with wanting to feel God.

I hold that while man exists, it is his duty to improve not only his own condition, but to assist in ameliorating mankind.

You might say, ‚Can’t we have a more human Christianity, without the cross, without Jesus, without stripping ourselves?‘ In this way we’d become pastry-shop Christians, like a pretty cake and nice sweet things. Pretty, but not true Christians.

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.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.

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 know people said I wasn’t selling out in America, but that was entirely untrue. We sold out all over the world, and every night I looked out into the fans and those front rows that you’re talking about, the tears, the honesty, the inability to not be completely overjoyed because they felt accepted.

If the standard transsexual person wants to be regarded as he or she, my sense is I’ll address you according to the part that you appear to be playing.

Whatever I will become will be what God has chosen for me.

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

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.

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.

All great artists draw from the same resource: the human heart, which tells us that we are all more alike than we are unalike.

A covenant made with God should be regarded not as restrictive but as protective.

Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them.

I deserve respect for the things I did not do.

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

Creating whole departments of ethnic, gender, and other ‚studies‘ was part of the price of academic peace. All too often, these ‚studies‘ are about propaganda rather than serious education.

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

I’m more of a realist when it comes to life, and I’d much rather my mother be in a spiritual place in Heaven than in a bed, sick, fighting for her life.

He was an embittered atheist, the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him.

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

Forgiveness is not a feeling – it’s a decision we make because we want to do what’s right before God. It’s a quality decision that won’t be easy and it may take time to get through the process, depending on the severity of the offense.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

Coincidences are spiritual puns.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

The Bible is clear – God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman.

The life which men praise and regard as successful is but one kind. Why should we exaggerate any one kind at the expense of the others?

Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don’t want to be a colony in a nation.

There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist.

True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that – it is spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

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.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.

We think when God speaks to us, there’s going to be a boom out of Heaven or we’re going to get some chill bumps, but I really believe God’s talking to us all the time. He’s talking to us right in here. I call it our heart, our conscience, but it’s the Holy Spirit talking to us.

The American dream belongs to all of us.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

When you are young, you cannot imagine being disabled. You imagine you would conquer it somehow. As I’ve got older, I can imagine it; I can see how life narrows in. I feel compassion for my mother now.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

I do value the respect I get from my contemporaries, but to have Oasis cover my song, to have Puff Daddy cover a song, to have Goldie come along to my gigs – that’s where my ego is at. To have my fellow musicians like what I do, that’s very cool.

For me, the Immaculate Conception is the feast of ‚passive action,‘ the action that functions simply by the transmission through us of divine energy. Purity, in spite of outward appearances, is essentially an active virtue, because it concentrates God in us and on those who are subject to our influence.

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.

There’s one advantage in having been around as long as I have. Everybody in the Senate knows me, and – I’m going to say something presumptuous, to repeat myself – I think most respect me.

I can’t believe that God put us on this earth to be ordinary.