Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

Do not seek to bring things to pass in accordance with your wishes, but wish for them as they are, and you will find them.

Let us be shy no longer. Let us go to our strength. Let us offer hope. Let us tell the world that a new age is not only possible but probable.

Every man who knows how to read has it in his power to magnify himself, to multiply the ways in which he exists, to make his life full, significant and interesting.

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made.

For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.

I love making new friends and I respect people for a lot of different reasons.

Today different ethnic groups and different nations come together due to common sense.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

Here in America, we don’t let our differences tear us apart. Not here. Because we know that our greatness comes from when we appreciate each other’s strengths, when we learn from each other, when we lean on each other, because in this country, it’s never been each person for themselves. No, we’re all in this together. We always have been.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

Women feel empowered when they can do the things that are supposed to be only for men, you know? It breaks boundaries, it’s liberating, and it’s empowering when you feel like, ‚Well, I can do that, too.‘

You might well remember that nothing can bring you success but yourself.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

I never ask anyone else’s opinion. They don’t count.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

I always have been an activist for things that were just authentically a part of my life, that I felt connected to.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who’s spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

I don’t even know how to speak up for myself, because I don’t really have a father who would give me the confidence or advice.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

Death is acceptable only if it represents the physically necessary passage toward a union, the condition of a metamorphosis.

In all my work, in the movies I write, the lyrics, the poetry, the prose, the essays, I am saying that we may encounter many defeats – maybe it’s imperative that we encounter the defeats – but we are much stronger than we appear to be and maybe much better than we allow ourselves to be. Human beings are more alike than unalike.

I believe in a passion for inclusion.

I learned, when I look in the mirror and tell my story, that I should be myself and not peep whatever everybody is doing.

You have your ideology and I have mine.

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.

Nothing external to you has any power over you.

I want people to understand they have to live their own lives the way they want to and not just do what we do.

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

I think when people mean that Discworld books have become darker they really mean the series is growing up. In ‚The Colour of Magic‘ most of the city is set alight. It’s a joke, in much the same way that the Earth is destroyed almost at the start of Douglas Adams’s ‚The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.‘

I am growing handsome very fast indeed! I expect I shall be the belle of Amherst when I reach my 17th year. I don’t doubt that I shall have perfect crowds of admirers at that age. Then how I shall delight to make them await my bidding, and with what delight shall I witness their suspense while I make my final decision.

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

There’s a lack of people in power that are motivated by the idea of helping people.

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.

There are as many opinions as there are experts.

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

Everything is generated through your own will power.

I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.

You learn that there’s no right way to do it, no wrong way to do it. It’s just what you feel comfortable with, to trust that, and don’t let anybody box you in to a certain style of parenting or make you feel a certain way about what your kids do.

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

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‚Thy will be done,‘ and those to whom God says, ‚All right, then, have it your way.‘

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

Fixing a broken immigration system. Protecting our kids from gun violence. Equal pay for equal work, paid leave, raising the minimum wage. All these things still matter to hardworking families; they are still the right thing to do; and I will not let up until they get done.

Dissident intellectuals aren’t all beautiful.

If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise.

It’s always a struggle growing up in Akron.

The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

People from all over the world come to London wanting to make their own mark on it, and they add to the energy and vitality of the capital. It’s got a bit busier since the ’60s, but the more the merrier!

Everyone is different. Everyone has different teams they’ve played on, coaches they’ve played for.