The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

I am rather inclined to silence.

Laws are silent in time of war.

Those who had demanded no more than an end to the bombing of North Vietnam and a commitment to negotiations saw their demands being realized, and lapsed into silence.

I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.

Wall Street apparently takes and then forgets, and then comes after the guns of law-abiding American citizens and small businesses.

America is the student who defies the odds to become the first in a family to go to college – the citizen who defies the cynics and goes out there and votes – the young person who comes out of the shadows to demand the right to dream. That’s what America is about.

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.

Everything that’s created comes out of silence. Your thoughts emerge from the nothingness of silence. Your words come out of this void. Your very essence emerged from emptiness. All creativity requires some stillness.

You could tell ‚The Handmaid’s Tale‘ from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

The battle for women’s rights has been largely won.

The poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.

An oppressive government is more to be feared than a tiger.

I have been to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and I have witnessed the racially segregated roads and housing that reminded me so much of the conditions we experienced in South Africa under the racist system of Apartheid.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

I think if someone gets kicked in the face it is their fault – they watched the foot come towards their face.

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.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

We can’t afford to be killing one another.

When Hillary was First Lady, we went to the Beijing Women’s Conference. She courageously stood up and spoke out on behalf of human rights and women’s rights, inspiring millions to fight for a better future.

Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality.

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

The way to silence religious disputes is to take no notice of them.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Accept the terrible responsibility of life with eyes wide open.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.

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.

To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

The awareness that health is dependent upon habits that we control makes us the first generation in history that to a large extent determines its own destiny.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

When ignorance gets started it knows no bounds.

In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution.

For more than four decades, the Libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant – Moammar Gaddafi. He has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorized innocent people around the world – including Americans who were killed by Libyan agents.

If an injustice requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the government machine.

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.

Absolute silence leads to sadness. It is the image of death.

When I was growing up, I wanted to adopt, because I was aware there were kids that didn’t have parents.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Even if the politics needed doesn’t exist today, we still need to use our voices to make sure that the people in power are focused on the right things. Because this is a democracy, and in a democracy, people are the ones who run the country.

I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Any religion that professes to be concerned about the souls of men and is not concerned about the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them and the social conditions that cripple them is a spiritually moribund religion awaiting burial.

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.

When you’re not engaged in the day-to-day struggles that everybody feels, you slowly start losing touch. And I think it’s important for the people in the White House to have a finger on the pulse.

Our present moment is a mystery that we are part of. Here and now is where all the wonder of life lies hidden. And make no mistake about it, to strive to live completely in the present is to strive for what already is the case.

I find with most of my readers are kind of like me, sort of people who were a little bit naive in life and then learned the hard way that this is what’s going on, the political games and most of my readers write to me telling me that the book helped them open their eyes to what other people are doing to them.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Silence is more eloquent than words.

I don’t think there is a single social issue I haven’t spoken on.

I think feminists are unaware of the tremendous extent of the role of women in history.

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.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

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.

The impulse to cruelty is, in many people, almost as violent as the impulse to sexual love – almost as violent and much more mischievous.

Most people have the opportunity of a lifetime flash right in front of them, and they fail to see it. A year later, they find out about it, after everyone else got rich.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.