I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

SEALs are human beings. We may all have the same haircuts, but we aren’t robots. Some SEALs are great people. Some are not great people. Some have done unspeakably terrible things. You’re dealing with different people, different dreams, different desires.

The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it’s likely to harm them.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally. If you want to take responsibility for your life, you must choose one of those three options, and you must choose now. Then accept the consequences.

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‚Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?‘ We must always consider the person.

I don’t have much positive to say about motor neuron disease, but it taught me not to pity myself because others were worse off, and to get on with what I still could do. I’m happier now than before I developed the condition.

I had practiced with the team, and the first scheduled game was with the University of Missouri. They made it quite clear to the Army that they would not play a team with a black player on it. Instead of telling me the truth, the Army gave me leave to go home.

Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.

Everybody’s journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

I am a beneficiary of the American people’s generosity, and I hope we can have comprehensive immigration legislation that allows this country to continue to be enriched by those who were not born here.

You can’t choose up sides on a round world.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty.

Things do not always happen the way I would like them to happen, and I had better get used to that.

Error is acceptable as long as we are young; but one must not drag it along into old age.

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

Man can never be a woman’s equal in the spirit of selfless service with which nature has endowed her.

A man has a tendency to accept you the way you are, while most women immediately start to pick flaws and want to change you.

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

Once you feel loved by the universe, you’re already accepted, and you’re not really concerned about offending people.

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it’s one that’s easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

And I will do everything that I can as long as I am President of the United States to remind the American people that we are one nation under God, and we may call that God different names but we remain one nation.

Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

I’m a warrior for the middle class.

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.

Violence as a way of achieving racial justice is both impractical and immoral. I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace.

Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no. That’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?

The fact that over 50 per cent of the residents of Toronto are not from Canada, that is always a good thing, creatively, and for food especially. That is easily a city’s biggest strength, and it is Toronto’s unique strength.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

As much as I’m a black person from America, I’m a black person from Africa, too.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

When Hillary was First Lady, we went to the Beijing Women’s Conference. She courageously stood up and spoke out on behalf of human rights and women’s rights, inspiring millions to fight for a better future.

There was a while when I was feeling like, ‚Damn, if I’d just been born black, I would not have to go through all this‘.

Those who invest in South Africa should not think they are doing us a favor; they are here for what they get out of our cheap and abundant labor, and they should know that they are buttressing one of the most vicious systems.

I still make sure to go, at least once every year, to a country where things cannot be taken for granted, and where there is either too much law and order or too little.

Sometimes, you might meet somebody that you love that’s turning into a ‚they.‘ My key is invite them to Miami and take them to the ocean and let them jump off the boat in the ocean, on the sand bar, and cleanse off and pray and then go take a shower, and hopefully the ‚they‘ is out of 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.

Me and my dad are friends. We’re cool. I’ll never be disappointed again, because I don’t expect anything anymore from him. I just let him exist, and that’s how we get along.

It is hardly an exaggeration to say that oral teachers and sign teachers found it difficult to sit down in the same room without quarreling, and there was intolerance upon both sides. To say ‚oral method‘ to a sign teacher was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull, and to say ‚sign language‘ to an oralist aroused the deepest resentment.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old – and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.

I’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

I had one incident where my daughter said that a girl asked if she was a brown person. I said, ‚We’re black. You have black people, white people, Chinese people, Hispanic people; we’re all brought up differently.‘

Many people think of perfectionism as striving to be your best, but it is not about self-improvement; it’s about earning approval and acceptance.

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

I’m sorry my existence is not very noble or sublime.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be, to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated on the job.

I’m not ashamed to say I fear something.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.

I love that for Barack, there is no such thing as ‚us‘ and ‚them‘ – he doesn’t care whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or none of the above… he knows that we all love our country… and he’s always ready to listen to good ideas… he’s always looking for the very best in everyone he meets.

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