I’m not for gay marriage, but I’m not for discriminating against people.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

I will never win an Oscar, and do you know why? First of all, because I’m not Jewish. Secondly, I make too much money for all those old farts in the Academy.

We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. The teaching of the church is clear, and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.

As I said last week in the wake of the grand jury decision, I think Ferguson laid bare a problem that is not unique to St. Louis or that area, and is not unique to our time, and that is a simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color.

Unlimited economic growth has the marvelous quality of stilling discontent while maintaining privilege, a fact that has not gone unnoticed among liberal economists.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

A fundamentalist can’t bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

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

No one is pro-abortion.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews – everybody is created equally in the eyes of God.

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

If you see a black family, it’s looting, but if it’s a white family they are looking for food.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

You never make fun of anybody with a club foot or a withered arm, but it’s open season on anybody who stutters.

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

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

A man who is good enough to shed his blood for the country is good enough to be given a square deal afterwards.

The U.S. military was segregated ‚til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated.

I ain’t never called nobody no redskin. I’ve never been mad, like, ‚Get out of this restaurant, you redskin.‘

Our veterans who fall on hard times and find themselves without a home deserve more than just handwringing or kind words. They deserve real help that gets them back on their feet.

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.

Our diversity is our strength. What a dull and pointless life it would be if everyone was the same.

Racism and sexism, misogyny and homophobia, they’re so visible. They’re out in the open. When they’re visible, it’s a lot easier to deal with them.

Rendition is just sending people abroad to be tortured.

After two years at UCLA, I decided to leave. I was convinced that no amount of education would help a black man get a job.

What makes us Americans is our shared commitment to an ideal – that all of us are created equal, and all of us have the chance to make of our lives what we will.

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.

Four legs good, two legs bad.

You can’t get a contemporary story about what is going on inside government, and how society sees itself, on American TV.

To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others.

Honor is not the exclusive property of any political party.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

It’s a disgrace that we have millions of people who are uninsured.

The ‚Third World‘ is a term I don’t like very much because we’re all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering.

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

The poor don’t know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity.

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.

Giving a poor person money keeps them poor.

What has happened at Guantanamo Bay… does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixteen were compelled to carry ‚Native passes‘ issued by the Native Affairs Department and were required to show that pass to any white policeman, civil servant, or employer. Failure to do so could mean arrest, trial, a jail sentence or fine.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

Violence is both unavoidable and unjustifiable.

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

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.

I don’t think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

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.

I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world. In 1972, in 1947, at my birth in 1919, I know that I never had it made.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America – there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America – there’s the United States of America.

Homophobia is real in this country.

Every utopia – let’s just stick with the literary ones – faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don’t fit in?

There is no question that liberals do an impressive job of expressing concern for blacks. But do the intentions expressed in their words match the actual consequences of their deeds?

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.