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

That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said – and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded – ‚It’s like hair color. It’s nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It’s not a subject.‘ This was a very healthy attitude.

Eternal principles that govern happiness apply equally to all.

Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it’s like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can’t really speak on it, because I wasn’t there. I don’t feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many ‚bads‘ – bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even ‚bad‘ white males. Only, when you write about ‚bad‘ white males, they don’t complain about it. And need I say that there are ‚good‘ blacks, ‚good‘ homosexuals and ‚good‘ women?

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.

We reached a high point in my opinion with the passage of the civil rights legislation and Martin Luther King’s success and the crusade of others. I think we kind of breathed a sigh of relief as if we had achieved the end of racial discrimination or white supremacy.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

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.

Unfortunately, in a recession, the people who suffer the most aren’t the rich, but the wanna-be rich and the poor.

All women have a perception much more developed than men. So all women somehow, being repressed for so many millennia, they ended up by developing this sixth sense and contemplation and love. And this is something that we have a hard time to accept as part of our society.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

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

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible.

My mother told me two things constantly. One was to be a lady and the other was to be independent, and the law was something most unusual for those times because for most girls growing up in the ’40s, the most important degree was not your B.A. but your M.R.S.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

We have to work harder to develop a profound theology of women within the church. The feminine genius is needed wherever we make important decisions.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

Honestly, I’d love to be remembered as one of the best to ever pick up a mic, but if I’m doing my part to lessen some racial tension I feel good about what I’m doing.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

If proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

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.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

I believe there is complete equality between men and women. And I believe those passages in the New Testament, not by Jesus, but by Paul, that say women should not adorn themselves, they should always wear hats or color their hair in church – things like that – I think they are signs of the times and should not apply to modern-day life.

I’m for women choosing whatever they want to do but they have to really know what they are doing.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

My mom cleaned toilets for a long time, and she’d seen a lot of terrible things, but she was still the strength of our family. And there are women like that all across the country – all around the world – who show that type of fortitude.

The stronger the participation of the female characters, the better the movie. They knew that in the old days, when women stars were equally as important as men.

In the ’50s, too many women, even though they were very smart, they tried to make the man feel that he was brainier. It was a sad thing.

In our society, the women who break down barriers are those who ignore limits.

I love diversity.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

There are millions of Americans outside Washington who are tired of stale political arguments and are moving this country forward. They believe, and I believe, that here in America, our success should depend not on accident of birth, but the strength of our work ethic and the scope of our dreams.

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.

All men are equal before fish.

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

My parents taught me never to judge others based on whom they love, what color their skin is, or their religion.

It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

The equal right of all citizens to health, education, work, food, security, culture, science, and wellbeing – that is, the same rights we proclaimed when we began our struggle, in addition to those which emerge from our dreams of justice and equality for all inhabitants of our world – is what I wish for all.

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

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.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

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.

I remember being in Japan when Destiny’s Child put out ‚Independent Women,‘ and women there were saying how proud they were to have their own jobs, their own independent thinking, their own goals. It made me feel so good, and I realized that one of my responsibilities was to inspire women in a deeper way.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

My family supported me a lot and my father flew in to stay with me from time to time.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

The little man is still a man.

I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us.