As much as I’m a black person from America, I’m a black person from Africa, too.

Like it or not, there are a lot of dance teachers in this country who respect me, whether they personally like me or not.

You cannot talk about race without talking about privilege. And when people start talking about privilege, they get paralyzed by shame.

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

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor – over each other.

I feel that there are a few things in the world without cultural barriers.

Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?… It is necessary to accompany them with mercy.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology accepts blacks in the top ten percent of students, but at MIT this puts them in the bottom ten percent of the class.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Dissident intellectuals aren’t all beautiful.

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city’s biggest strength, and it is Toronto’s unique strength.

Hip-hop is ever changing but you’ll always have the pack. And you’ll always have those people who are separated from the pack.

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

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

Part of the core information that I’ve been purveying is that identity politics is a sick game. You don’t play racial, ethnic, and gender identity games. The Left plays them on behalf of the oppressed, let’s say, and the Right tends to play them on behalf of nationalism and ethnic pride. I think they’re equally dangerous.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other.

For Christians, who believe they are created in the image of God, it is the Godhead, diversity in unity and the three-in-oneness of God, which we and all creation reflect.

I feel like my music has become a lot of things. It’s hard to label the evolution, but I like there to be an evolution. I just like to paint with all different kinds of colors.

Me only have one ambition, y’know. I only have one thing I really like to see happen. I like to see mankind live together – black, white, Chinese, everyone – that’s all.

The magic of America is that we’re a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.

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

Germany is a great nation only because its people have so much Polish blood in their veins.

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.

All these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race – racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic – what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race.

I am a beneficiary of the American people’s generosity, and I hope we can have comprehensive immigration legislation that allows this country to continue to be enriched by those who were not born here.

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.

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

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he’s an American child.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

Honolulu is a melting pot.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

One of the things that we’re trying to do with Creative Labs and all our experiences is explore things that aren’t all tied to Facebook identity. Some things will be, but not everything will have to be, because there are some sets of experiences that are just better with other identities.

Neither the Christian attitude of love for all mankind nor humane hopes for an organized society must cause us to forget that the ‚human stratum‘ may not be homogeneous.

I didn’t know any gay people in my childhood.

I’m not focused on the gay and lesbian movement.

I’m not looking to exclude people, I’m looking to include them.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

Sometimes, people can be extraordinarily judgmental and closed-minded to anyone different or special, which is why it’s so hard for young people in this day and age to be comfortable enough in their own skin to not listen to the people picking on them.

I just think overall there’s not as many female ministers than there are male ministers.

It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

I certainly respect the belief of the Hobby Lobby owners. On the other hand, they have no constitutional right to foist that belief on the hundreds and hundreds of women who work for them who don’t share that belief.

If you want to make computers that really work, create a design team composed only of healthy, active women with lots else to do in their lives, and give them carte blanche.

When you’re born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

The diversity of India, of our civilization, is actually a thing of beauty, which is something we are extremely proud of.

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.

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