I know I got it made while the masses of black people are catchin‘ hell, but as long as they ain’t free, I ain’t free.

If we do not lift up women and families, everyone will fall short.

Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal, and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions.

I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.

A free press can, of course, be good or bad, but, most certainly without freedom, the press will never be anything but bad.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

Only free men can negotiate. A prisoner cannot enter into contracts.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

It is right to give every man his due.

In this country, it doesn’t make any difference where you were born. It doesn’t make any difference who your parents were. It doesn’t make any difference if, like me, you couldn’t even speak English until you were in your twenties.

Justice and power must be brought together, so that whatever is just may be powerful, and whatever is powerful may be just.

The more you practice, the better you get, the more freedom you have to create.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

The momentum of freedom in our world is unmistakable – and it is not carried forward by our power alone. We can trust in that greater power Who guides the unfolding of the years. And in all that is to come, we can know that His purposes are just and true.

All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

I want a president with a record of public service, someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase fame and fortune for ourselves: we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.

If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalise people for this. They must be integrated into society.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

Gay marriage is going to happen. It must.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

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.

To shake your rump is to be environmentally aware.

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.‘

Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.

Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

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.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

Income inequity has to be addressed.

Only when Christ comes again will the little white children of Alabama walk hand in hand with little black children.

Stop this attitude that older people ain’t any good anymore! We’re as good as we ever were – if we ever were any good.

We all have wings, but they have not been of any avail to us and if we could tear them off, we would do so.

No fundamental social change occurs merely because government acts. It’s because civil society, the conscience of a country, begins to rise up and demand – demand – demand change.

Freedom without limits is just a word.

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

We are a nation founded as a rebuke to tyranny. A nation of revolutionaries who refused sovereign reign from afar. Hear me – we’re a nation that says give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. A nation built on our differences, guided by the belief that we’re all created equal.

I have seen how leaders rule by intimidation. Leaders who demonize and dehumanize entire groups of people often do so because they have nothing else to offer. And I have seen how places that stifle the voices and dismiss the potential of their citizens are diminished: how they are less vital, less hopeful, less free.

If you’re a surfer, you just want to surf. You don’t know if anyone’s going to see you, and you don’t really care if they see you. You just live for that feeling.

We still have many neighborhoods that are racially identified. We still have many schools that even though the days of state-enforced segregation are gone, segregation because of geographical boundaries remains.

All History is current; all injustice continues on some level, somewhere in the world.

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.

If segregationists had their way, I would not be a member of the United States Senate today, I would not be a top contender to be president of the United States.

They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.

Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.

In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute – a white skin.

It’s annoying, but justice and equality are mates. Aren’t they? Justice always wants to hang out with equality. And equality is a real pain.

In many respects, the United States is a great country. Freedom of speech is protected more than in any other country. It is also a very free society.

We can be thankful to a friend for a few acres, or a little money; and yet for the freedom and command of the whole earth, and for the great benefits of our being, our life, health, and reason, we look upon ourselves as under no obligation.

I’m going to stay active as long as I can politically, and with the Carter Center primarily, and if I’m able mentally and physically, will continue to be quite active.

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.

Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.

It is incontestable and deplorable that Negroes have committed crimes; but they are derivative crimes. They are born of the greater crimes of the white society.

Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.

The people who tend to raise antiwar slogans will do so generally when it’s American or British interests involved.

I wish I could say to all those people who consider themselves anarchists or radicals: Please join the nonviolent movement. This is how Gandhi freed India. If Gandhi freed India, we can certainly free the United States from our racism, misogyny, and bigotry.