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.

I’ve got a pen and I’ve got a phone – and I can use that pen to sign executive orders and take executive actions and administrative actions that move the ball forward.

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.

I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.

We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.

Eradications are special. Zero is a magic number. You either do what it takes to get to zero and you’re glad you did it; or you get close, give up and it goes back to where it was before, in which case you wasted all that credibility, activity, money that could have been applied to other things.

The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.

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.

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.

All experience is an arch, to build upon.

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

I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they’re men or women.

Healthy discontent is the prelude to progress.

On October 15, 1965, an estimated 70,000 people took part in large-scale anti-war demonstrations.

Get up, stand up, Stand up for your rights. Get up, stand up, Don’t give up the fight.

Innovation is a good thing. The human condition – put aside bioterrorism and a few footnotes – is improving because of innovation.

I think the positive competition between states in India is one of the most positive dynamics that the country has.

We can’t afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

There is no hierarchy of values any more. Real progress is due mainly to human genius, and that’s rare, and usually stems from a real elite, from a hierarchy.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It’s because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand – demand – demand change.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

The protestor I think will speak up for the world’s poorest.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

If you’re walking down the right path and you’re willing to keep walking, eventually you’ll make progress.

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

Some say we should not engage in activism. Instead we should leave everything to our politicians and just vote for a change instead. But what do we do when there is no political will? What do we do when the politics needed are nowhere in sight?

The best thing about my protest has been to see how more and more people have been coming and getting involved.

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

Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice.

I feel that my role as a former president is probably superior to that of other presidents. Primarily because of the activism and the injection of working at the Carter Center, and in international affairs, and to some degree, domestic affairs, on energy conservation, on environment, and things of that kind.

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.

Believing in progress does not mean believing that any progress has yet been made.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

Now we’re in the midst of not just advocating for change, not just calling for change – we’re doing the grinding, sometimes frustrating work of delivering change – inch by inch, day by day.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

Blacks, especially in America, have been raised with a slave mentality – they don’t feel that they have the right to speak as loud as possible.

It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.

Practice yourself, for heaven’s sake in little things, and then proceed to greater.

The ‚peace movement‘ exists only in the fantasies of the paranoid.

Let us build bridges, my friends, build bridges to human dignity across that gulf that separates black America from white America.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

Particularly conservative Christians, I was very angry that they were not involved more in the AIDS emergency.

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.

We welcome the scrutiny of the world – because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect.

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

As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

Civil disobedience is – it’s no fun.

People tell me that they are so hopeful when they see me and other children ‚school-striking,‘ and they say, ‚Oh the children are going to save us.‘ But no, we aren’t. We are too young to be able to do that. We don’t have time to wait for us to grow up and fix this in the future.

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

When you revolutionize education, you’re taking the very mechanism of how people be smarter and do new things, and you’re priming the pump for so many incredible things.

We may never be strong enough to be entirely nonviolent in thought, word and deed. But we must keep nonviolence as our goal and make strong progress towards it.

The march of science and technology does not imply growing intellectual complexity in the lives of most people. It often means the opposite.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

The credit of advancing science has always been due to individuals and never to the age.