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

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat.

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.

Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

Each part of my life provided respite from the other and gave me a sense of proportion that classmates trained only on law studies lacked.

Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?

Imagine the privilege the Lord has given us of sustaining His prophet, whose counsel will be untainted, unvarnished, unmotivated by any personal aspiration, and utterly true!

I always like to look on the optimistic side of life, but I am realistic enough to know that life is a complex matter.

We believe that every single child has boundless promise, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how much money their parents have. We’ve got to remember that. We believe that each of these young people is a vital part of the great American story.

It has always been my belief that a man should do his best, regardless of how much he receives for his services, or the number of people he may be serving or the class of people served.

What’s important for my daughter to know is that… if you are fortunate to have opportunity, it is your duty to make sure other people have those opportunities as well.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

America is the greatest country in the world.

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

I have a hard time figuring out what kind of box to put me in, too, because I don’t know exactly what’s going on around me or why. But I need to stay outside of boxes because then I can look at what’s inside of them without being part of them.

The thing I really care about is the mission, making the world open.

Comedy just pokes at problems, rarely confronts them squarely. Drama is like a plate of meat and potatoes, comedy is rather the dessert, a bit like meringue.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

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.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?

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.

Some men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not.

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.

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

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.

No such thing as a man willing to be honest – that would be like a blind man willing to see.

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.

It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.

We often represent God to ourselves as being able to draw from non-being a world without sorrows, faults, dangers – a world in which there is no damage, no breakage. This is a conceptual fantasy and makes it impossible to solve the problem of evil.

I really don’t pay attention to the outside world when I’m incarcerated, because being in prison is like being in a different world. So I don’t pay attention to what’s going on outside of jail, because it’s all beyond my control.

I’m never a reliable narrator, unbiased or objective.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many ‚bads‘ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‚bad‘ white males. Only, when you write about ‚bad‘ white males, they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‚good‘ blacks, ‚good‘ homosexuals and ‚good‘ women?

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.

You can’t have it all, all at once. Who – man or woman – has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all. But in different periods of time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

We reached a high point in my opinion with the passage of the civil rights legislation and Martin Luther King’s success and the crusade of others. I think we kind of breathed a sigh of relief as if we had achieved the end of racial discrimination or white supremacy.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.

Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don’t let yourself believe it will happen to you.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.

Then not only custom, but also nature affirms that to do is more disgraceful than to suffer injustice, and that justice is equality.

There are many victories worse than a defeat.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.