In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.

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 try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they’re men or women.

Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person. So violence isn’t merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country. Violence is much more subtle, much deeper.

I would dream. I focused all my attention on going to America. The subculture, James Dean, the rock n‘ roll, the beat writers.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

The arts have only ever interested a small minority of people, which acted as a kind of nursery to support artists.

It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope.

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

Someday, the capitalist system will disappear in the United States, because no social class system has been eternal. One day, class societies will disappear.

In America, the professor talks to the mechanic. They are in the same category.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

If workers are more insecure, that’s very ‚healthy‘ for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won’t ask for wages, they won’t go on strike, they won’t call for benefits; they’ll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that’s optimal for corporations‘ economic health.

In too much of the West, everyone wants the guarantee of safety, and never having to make any decisions.

If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

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

Everybody is a political person, whether you say something or you are silent. A political attitude is not whether you go to parliament; it’s how you deal with your life, with your surroundings.

The 21st century is going to be the American century. Because we lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example. That is the history of the journey of America.

The problem is when that fun stuff becomes the habit. And I think that’s what’s happened in our culture. Fast food has become the everyday meal.

I claim that human mind or human society is not divided into watertight compartments called social, political and religious. All act and react upon one another.

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation.

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

It’s rare for anyone to value the opinions of a teenage girl.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.

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.

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.

To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.

All great change in America begins at the dinner table.

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

This City is what it is because our citizens are what they are.

Children are all foreigners.

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.

If you’re too free, you’re like the way Hong Kong is now. It’s very chaotic.

What troubles me most about my lovely country is that its children are seldom taught that American freedom will vanish, if, when they grow up, and in the exercise of their duties as citizens, they insist that our courts and policemen and prisons be guided by divine or natural law.

In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, ‚The Martian Chronicles.‘

I think everybody deserves an equal amount of appreciation whether how old they are, but I mean, I’m cool with the praise. I’m good.

The media need superheroes in science just as in every sphere of life, but there is really a continuous range of abilities with no clear dividing line.

There are many times when a woman will ask another girl friend how she likes her new hat. She will reply, ‚Fine,‘ but slap her hand to her forehead the minute the girl leaves to yipe, ‚What a horror!‘

And every human being is precious.

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.

We only need so much to survive, but this world we live in tells us we need more stuff to be happy. We’re inundated with our televisions, the Internet and advertising that says in order to be happy you have to have these things. When you say, ‚Gimme, gimme, gimme,‘ you will always be in short supply.

Just as the humble, unassuming, assenting ‚O.K.‘ has deposed the more affirmative ‚Yes,‘ so the little cringe and hesitation and approximation of ‚like‘ are a help to young people who are struggling to negotiate the shoals and rapids of ethnic identity, the street, and general correctness.

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

The mob is the mother of tyrants.

England and America are two countries separated by the same language.

The President is not only the leader of a party, he is the President of the whole people. He must interpret the conscience of America. He must guide his conduct by the idealism of our people.

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.

Regardless of what society says, we can’t go on much longer in the sea of immorality without judgment coming.

I think I’ve committed the one really bad English crime, which is I’ve risen above my station. I was supposed to be a pop star, and suddenly I’m claiming that I’m an artist of some kind.

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

Since coming back from overseas, this is more of a foreign country than the places overseas. I don’t understand it. It’s like America has lost faith in rational thought.

I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.