I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions.

This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty.

It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association.

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

When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.

No honest writer today can possibly avoid being influenced by Freud through his pioneering work into the Unconscious and by the influence of those discoveries on the scientific, philosophic, and artistic work of his contemporaries: but not, by any means, necessarily through Freud’s own writing.

I grew up in a very nice house in Houston, went to private school all my life and I’ve never even been to the ‚hood. Not that there’s anything wrong with the ‚hood.

I don’t want enemies. I want friends, and I want them in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and loving whoever they want to.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

If you want to appeal to everyone, you can’t do a world tour and expect black people to show up at every date – when you’re in Australia, when you’re in Dubai, when you’re in Indonesia.

Won’t it be wonderful when black history and native American history and Jewish history and all of U.S. history is taught from one book. Just U.S. history.

Neither sex, without some fertilization of the complimentary characters of the other, is capable of the highest reaches of human endeavor.

People use irony as a defense mechanism.

The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.

I have no interest in gender or race or anything like that. But everyone else is kind of, with their calculating – is this the exact right mix? I think that’s – to me it’s anti-comedy. It’s more about PC-nonsense.

One of the things that I have admired about India is the spiritualism of the people.

Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose.

Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

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

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.

Don’t say I hate institutionalised religion – rather than saying I hate those things, which I do not, what I’m saying is that perhaps there is a way of opening more doors, rather than closing so many.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

In the West, as well as some other parts of the world, the personal sense of ego tends to predominate, whereas in other areas, there is a more collective sense of ego. This collective ego emphasizes the ‚we‘ rather than the ‚I.‘

We need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn’t a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith.

Unfortunately, the people of Louisiana are not racists.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

Character is expressed through our behavior patterns, or natural responses to things.

We’re a diverse society, and I think the TV is doing a great job in showing that we’re all human beings, that we can all get along, that we can all be together, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

I’m going to try to unite all Americans.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

As capitalism falters, the rich move their money out of the country, violence increases, and politicians promising prosperity are elected.

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

Let’s teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.

Even now I will go to, like, an industry event, and all the ladies will be over here and all the guys over here, and I will go to the guys‘ table and sit because I just feel I can have a much better conversation over there. And that’s automatic; it’s not prejudice.

I think tolerance and acceptance and love is something that feeds every community.

I think there ought to be a strict separation or wall built between our religious faith and our practice of political authority in office. I don’t think the President of the United States should extoll Christianity if he happens to be a Christian at the expense of Judaism, Islam or other faiths.

If a man reaches the heart of his own religion, he has reached the heart of the others, too. There is only one God, and there are many paths to him.

Homophobia is real in this country.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.

To such an extent does nature delight and abound in variety that among her trees there is not one plant to be found which is exactly like another; and not only among the plants, but among the boughs, the leaves and the fruits, you will not find one which is exactly similar to another.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

Foreignness is all around. Only in the heart of the heart of the country, namely the heart of the United States, can you avoid such a thing. In the center of an empire, you can think of your experience as universal. Outside the empire or on the fringes of the empire, you cannot.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

People have different emotional levels. Especially when you’re young.

Giving a poor person money keeps them poor.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

Men willingly believe what they wish.

We boil at different degrees.

The notion that we have even one single veteran living on the streets should be just considered a travesty to all of us.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

Everyone got kind of crazy with me mentioning I was in love with a woman.