I don’t think there is a single social issue I haven’t spoken on.

Some people say that I should study to become a climate scientist so that I can ‚solve the climate crisis.‘ But the climate crisis has already been solved. We already have all the facts and solutions. All we have to do is to wake up and change.

You can jail a Revolutionary, but you can’t jail the Revolution.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

Something’s very wrong with a nation that would rather spend money on war than take care of its children.

You know, if I listened to Michael Dukakis long enough, I would be convinced we’re in an economic downturn and people are homeless and going without food and medical attention and that we’ve got to do something about the unemployed.

Journalism makes you think fast. You have to speak to people in all walks of life. Especially local journalism.

Once people are aware of your presence, and perhaps vaguely intrigued, you need to stir their interest before it settles on someone else.

I stand here before you not as a prophet, but as a humble servant of you, the people.

I think we have a duty to maintain the light of consciousness to make sure it continues into the future.

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.

Civil disobedience’s main goal typically is to try to arouse and inspire others to join and do something. Well, sometimes that is a good tactic, sometimes not.

And so I have studied, I have to tell you, revolutions and uprisings for a long time. They are all slightly different, but what they all look for is some kind of a mechanism to go from an authoritarian system to an open, democratic system.

Most people have the opportunity of a lifetime flash right in front of them, and they fail to see it. A year later, they find out about it, after everyone else got rich.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

If people continue to feel like Democrats are looking after poor folks and Republicans are looking after rich folks and nobody is looking after me, then we don’t get a lot of stuff done. And the trend lines evidence the fact that folks have gotten squeezed. And obviously, 2007, 2008 really ripped open for people how vulnerable they were.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Anyone that’s involved in development has discovered that all the good work that’s been done in development has been undone by the AIDS emergency.

Millions of people die every day. Everyone’s got to go sometime. I’ve came by this particular tumor honestly. If you smoke, which I did for many years very heavily with occasional interruption, and if you use alcohol, you make yourself a candidate for it in your sixties.

How much better it would be if all could be more aware of God’s providence and love and express that gratitude to Him.

Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain.

One of the common failings among honorable people is a failure to appreciate how thoroughly dishonorable some other people can be, and how dangerous it is to trust them.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

It is true that going out on to the street implies the risk of accidents happening, as they would to any ordinary man or woman. But if the church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age. And if I had to choose between a wounded church that goes out on to the streets and a sick, withdrawn church, I would definitely choose the first one.

Well the protester I think is a very powerful thing. It’s basically a mechanism of democracy that, along with capitalism, scientific innovation, those things have built the modern world. And it’s wonderful that the new tools have empowered that protestor so that state secrets, bad developments are not hidden anymore.

When you take your attention into the present moment, a certain alertness arises. You become more conscious of what’s around you, but also, strangely, a sense of presence that is both within and without.

I love it when people say things to me in public and want to meet me, because I want to meet them! Early on, my manager told me, ‚If you want to sell 500,000 records, then go out there and meet 500,000 people.‘

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

I am pro-education. I’m just anti the system.

An ignorant person is one who doesn’t know what you have just found out.

Our present moment is a mystery that we are part of. Here and now is where all the wonder of life lies hidden. And make no mistake about it, to strive to live completely in the present is to strive for what already is the case.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

I’m trying to keep a level head. You have to be careful out in the world. It’s so easy to get turned.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

I have all the admiration in the world for somebody like Bono, who really puts himself on the line and tries actively to do something about our world situation.

I have always hated slavery, I think, as much as any abolitionist. I have been an Old Line Whig. I have always hated it, but I have always been quiet about it until this new era of the introduction of the Nebraska Bill began.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

If I have a platform and a voice, I should use it for my people.

My dear sisters, whatever your calling, whatever your circumstances, we need your impressions, your insights, and your inspiration. We need you to speak up and speak out in ward and stake councils.

In the television age, the key distinction is between the candidate who can speak poetry and the one who can only speak prose.

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.

I’ve always had to conquer fear when I’m on stage. Basically, I was and still am a very shy person. It’s absolutely in conflict with what I do. But once I deliver the first joke I’m okay. It’s like I’m out there all by myself just delivering my lines to nobody in particular without ever trying to notice the audience in front of me.

If investments in banks fall, it is a tragedy, and people say, ‚What are we going to do?‘ but if people die of hunger, have nothing to eat or suffer from poor health, that’s nothing.

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

Those who had demanded no more than an end to the bombing of North Vietnam and a commitment to negotiations saw their demands being realized, and lapsed into silence.

These days, children can text on their cell phone all night long, and no one else is seeing that phone. You don’t know who is calling that child.

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

For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis.

Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.

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.

Is it not important to find out how to listen not only to what is being said but to everything – to the noise in the streets, to the chatter of birds, to the noise of the tramcar, to the restless sea, to the voice of your husband, to your wife, to your friends, to the cry of a baby?

Violence has been Nicaragua’s most important export to the world.

I was so upset with what was going on in the world. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being people tortured and that we even had such a thing as war. I hated the older generation, who had not done anything about it. Punk was a call-to-arms for me.

Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.

This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one.

You can become blind by seeing each day as a similar one. Each day is a different one, each day brings a miracle of its own. It’s just a matter of paying attention to this miracle.

Artists have a responsibility to speak and to act when governments fail, and if we don’t do that, we really deserve the world we get.