Man, all lives matter.

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

The people made worse off by slavery were those who were enslaved. Their descendants would have been worse off today if born in Africa instead of America. Put differently, the terrible fate of their ancestors benefitted them.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

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

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.

Judge Afiuni has suffered enough. She has been subject to acts of violence and humiliations to undermine her human dignity. I am convinced that she must be set free.

I think we must get rid of slavery, or we must get rid of freedom.

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun.

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

A man is what he thinks about all day long.

You gotta understand: I believe a woman should praise the man, the king. If you holding it down for your woman, I feel like the woman should praise. And the man should praise the queen.

Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.

Man, so long as he remains free, has no more constant and agonizing anxiety than find as quickly as possible someone to worship.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Some of the most moving experiences I’ve had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

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

I love diversity.

A woman can’t be alone. She needs a man. A man and a woman support and strengthen each other. She just can’t do it by herself.

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – then all Americans are in peril.

Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

You’ve got to watch the politics of AIDS. The politics of AIDS can work both for and against the victims of AIDS.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

The world, we are told, was made especially for man – a presumption not supported by all the facts. A numerous class of men are painfully astonished whenever they find anything, living or dead, in all God’s universe, which they cannot eat or render in some way what they call useful to themselves.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.

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

In February 2004, the two traditional torturers of Haiti – France and the United States – combined to back a military coup and send President Aristide off to Africa. The U.S. denies him permission to return to the entire region.

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

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.

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

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man. The biography of the man himself cannot be written.

I do think that Magna Carta and international law are worth paying some attention to.

States should have the right to enact laws… particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

I think that there’s no doubt that as I see friends, families, children of gay couples who are thriving, you know, that has an impact on how I think about these issues.

Four legs good, two legs bad.

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.

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

The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.

A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

Some kinds of animals burrow in the ground; others do not. Some animals are nocturnal, as the owl and the bat; others use the hours of daylight. There are tame animals and wild animals. Man and the mule are always tame; the leopard and the wolf are invariably wild, and others, as the elephant, are easily tamed.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

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

In terms of my involvement in ‚don’t ask, don’t tell‘ and marriage equality and anti-bullying and social emotional learning in schools – these are all things that arise out of my relationship with the world and with my fans.

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.

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

We are all alike, on the inside.

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?

Here’s the thing: every office I’ve run for I was the first to win. First person of color. First woman. First woman of color. Every time.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

We have an idea that we Americans are God’s chosen people, that God loves us more than any other people, and that we are God’s blessed. I tell you that God doesn’t love us any more than He does the Russians.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

Those who ‚abjure‘ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.