People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship, and if that happened, then they wouldn’t be prey to the employers who say, ‚We want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.‘

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

It’s annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children of illegal immigrants have such a right?

My mother came from India to go to the University of California, Berkeley.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

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

Most of us believe, or should believe, that every child can learn, given the opportunity, but try substitute teaching just once and you will see firsthand the socioeconomic issues that distract our kids from taking advantage of that opportunity.

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.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody’s ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the ‚n‘ word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren’t pretty or they weren’t rich or they weren’t clever.

I want to support other women because of the opportunities I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of opportunities. What I try as a female director is to do the best job I can and, in the meantime, bring attention to as many other female directors and writers as I can.

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.

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.

I wish every American had an opportunity to sit down, to go to a base, to meet with families, to meet with service members, to sit down with our veterans – because we would think differently about our challenges as individuals.

When you face a ‚performance‘ that might provoke the ‚I’m scared‘ response, choose love and approach your opportunity as a chance to dance with God. It’s more fun than ‚Dancing with the Stars!‘

May we do good everywhere as we have opportunity, and results will not be wanting!

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

A man must make his opportunity, as oft as find it.

Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.

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.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

God can cause opportunity to find you. He has unexpected blessings where you suddenly meet the right person, or suddenly your health improves, or suddenly you’re able to pay off your house. That’s God shifting things in your favor.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.

If you get an opportunity to work with David Simon, anybody with good taste would.

Undocumented aliens unfortunately are not protected by the law, and they are tremendously subjected to exploitation. The result is that they would be willing to work for a wage that no person who is welcome in our shores would take.

My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.

The idea that putting Americans ‚first‘ requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens.

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.

Girls shouldn’t worry about being the equal of men in the business world.

There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there’s only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.

You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what’s happening in Africa, and if we’re honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

And we have done more in the two and a half years that I’ve been in here than the previous 43 Presidents to uphold that principle, whether it’s ending ‚don’t ask, don’t tell,‘ making sure that gay and lesbian partners can visit each other in hospitals, making sure that federal benefits can be provided to same-sex couples.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews – everybody is created equally in the eyes of God.

I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

Everything negative – pressure, challenges – is all an opportunity for me to rise.

In this country, it doesn’t make any difference where you were born. It doesn’t make any difference who your parents were. It doesn’t make any difference if, like me, you couldn’t even speak English until you were in your twenties.

I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

I want a president with a record of public service: someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase form and fortune for ourselves; we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

I can assure you that my first and foremost interest is my country.

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.

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

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.

It’s always going to be a fight for anyone who isn’t an older white man. I want to fight for anyone who doesn’t have a fight.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

Let’s be honest – tracking down, rounding up, and deporting millions of people isn’t realistic. Anyone who suggests otherwise isn’t being straight with you. It’s also not who we are as Americans.

If you’re white and you’re wrong, then you’re wrong; if you’re black and you’re wrong, you’re wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green – God make no rules about color; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.

I disagree with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for.

The more you seek security, the less of it you have. But the more you seek opportunity, the more likely it is that you will achieve the security that you desire.

I can’t help the way you was born if you was gay.

Like so many American families, our families weren’t asking for much. They didn’t begrudge anyone else’s success or care that others had much more than they did… in fact, they admired it.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

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

Opportunity dances with those already on the dance floor.

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