I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.

Ya know what I do almost every day? I wash. Personal hygiene is part of the package with me.

Capitalism does not permit an even flow of economic resources. With this system, a small privileged few are rich beyond conscience, and almost all others are doomed to be poor at some level. That’s the way the system works. And since we know that the system will not change the rules, we are going to have to change the system.

When you practice gratefulness, there is a sense of respect toward others.

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

I think that we have opportunities all around us – sometimes we just don’t recognize them.

I love reading people. I really enjoy watching, observing, and being able to figure out a person, the reason they wore that dress, the reason they smell the way they do.

When you’re around the kids, you feel like you act the most grown up just because you’re supposed to lead. I say things, like every other parent, that reminds you of your own parents. One thing I do know about being a parent, you understand why your father was in a bad mood a lot.

Hate crime is not new in the United States.

It is always a strain when people are being killed. I don’t think anybody has held this job who hasn’t felt personally responsible for those being killed.

We must, all of us, learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise.

When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

We are rich only through what we give, and poor only through what we refuse.

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

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

The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

I’m a people pleaser. I hold a lot of things in. I’m always making sure everybody is okay. I usually don’t rage; I usually don’t curse.

Technology is unlocking the innate compassion we have for our fellow human beings.

Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.

When so many are lonely as seem to be lonely, it would be inexcusably selfish to be lonely alone.

There are only two occasions when Americans respect privacy, especially in Presidents. Those are prayer and fishing.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

In a summer marked by instability in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, I know the world also took notice of the small American city of Ferguson, Missouri – where a young man was killed, and a community was divided. So yes, we have our own racial and ethnic tensions.

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

Bears are very nice, as long as you are nice to them.

Every time I see documentaries or infomercials about little kids with cancer, I just freak out. It affects me on the highest emotional level… Anytime I think about it, it makes me sadder than anything I can think of.

Anger makes dull men witty, but it keeps them poor.

We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis.

The bottom line on the Hyde Amendment is that it is directly, in effect, targeting poor women and women who don’t have money.

I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman.

To us also, through every star, through every blade of grass, is not God made visible if we will open our minds and our eyes.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

You pity the fool because you don’t want to beat up a fool! You know, pity is between sorry and mercy. See, if you pity him, you know, you won’t have to beat him up. So that’s why I say fools, you gotta give another chance because they don’t know no better. That’s why I pity them!

Light is the greatest disinfectant in nature and also in organizations.

You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.

Life is relationship, living is relationship. We cannot live if you and I have built a wall around ourselves and just peep over that wall occasionally. Unconsciously, deeply, under the wall, we are related.

Many religious confessions share common values. They teach that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

When you truly accept that those children in some far off place in the global village have the same value as you in God’s eyes or even in just your eyes, then your life is forever changed; you see something that you can’t un-see.

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

When I was two, a dragonfly flew near me. A man knocked it to the ground and trod on it. I remember crying because I’d caused the dragonfly to be killed.

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

I don’t think I’m supposed to boss other people around just because I’m a so-called celebrity or star. I hate that when people act that way. No one deserves it. I’ve seen it happen. I don’t call those people out – they know who they are. Some enjoy that reputation.

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do.

To give aid to every poor man is far beyond the reach and power of every man. Care of the poor is incumbent on society as a whole.

It is hard to interest those who have everything in those who have nothing.

Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.

You’re morally tainted if you don’t treat both the accuser and the accused with fairness and with respect, and with due process.

When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

I always bring out the best in men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.

If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

Some people never go crazy, What truly horrible lives they must live.

Not everyone can see the truth, but he can be it.

There is a noble manner of being poor, and who does not know it will never be rich.

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better pay much closer attention to what the U.S. government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That’s all to the good.

We learned about gratitude and humility – that so many people had a hand in our success, from the teachers who inspired us to the janitors who kept our school clean… and we were taught to value everyone’s contribution and treat everyone with respect.