My protest about the post exchange seating bore some results. More seats were allocated for blacks, but there were still separate sections for blacks and for whites. At least I had made my men realize that something could be accomplished by speaking out, and I hoped they would be less resigned to unjust conditions.

When I was growing up, there were no women in orchestras. Auditioners thought they could tell the difference between a woman playing and a man. Some intelligent person devised a simple solution: Drop a curtain between the auditioners and the people trying out. And, lo and behold, women began to get jobs in symphony orchestras.

Nothing is being done to stop the climate and ecological emergency from happening and to secure the future wellbeing for future generations.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

I’m not intimidated by how people perceive me.

Nobody is my boss.

I affirm to you the tremendous potential you have, not beyond anything you could ever imagine.

For way too long the politicians and people in power have got away with not doing anything at all to fight the climate crisis and ecological crisis.

No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

This above all, to refuse to be a victim.

I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

The polls show that concern over inequality among the general public rose pretty sharply after the Occupy movement started, very probably as a consequence. And there are other policy issues that came to the fore, which are significant.

A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.

Even after Independence, we have had to face the poison of casteism and communalism. How long these evils will continue? Whom does it benefit?

The women of my generation and my daughter’s generation, they were very active in moving along the social change that would result in equal citizenship stature for men and women.

I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no one can take it from him.

I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.

Print some money and give it to us for the rain forests.

Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.

One’s only rival is one’s own potentialities. One’s only failure is failing to live up to one’s own possibilities. In this sense, every man can be a king, and must therefore be treated like a king.

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.

The answer to the problem of inequality is for the people who are fortunate enough to either have been gifted or deserved more to do everything they can to make the communities around them as strong as they possibly can.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?

One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The man of genius inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers.

I am not afraid… I was born to do this.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

I’m trying to show everybody that I’m a girl, and I’m five foot four, and you can do anything you want, no matter your gender. It’s your world, too!

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.

Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

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.

I do believe in self-help.

The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa, and say this, and mean it. We do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off – we do not have to stand for this.

What you put into life is what you get out of it.

So many killings of black men in my lifetime. The physical shock is astounding.

Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn’t wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain’t got no manhood left anyway.

To lead people walk behind them.

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

I wish I could shut up, but I can’t, and I won’t.

I’m not going to change the world. You’re not going to change the world. But we can help – we can all help.

People have this capacity within them to set the world straight.

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.

God made you a masterpiece – be blessed, secure, disciplined and equipped.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

I heard that when Christina Aguilera went back to her prom, people, like, booed her. I can’t imagine going through that. If you know that’s going to happen, why put yourself in that situation? I’d rather play for 20,000 screaming people, you know?

The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood.

A business like an automobile, has to be driven, in order to get results.

If you’re too big to fit into fashion, then you just have to do your own fashion.

Sexism is part of every industry and must be addressed. But I try not to focus on the negative but the positive side of what we can bring.

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world.

We have to wake up. We have to refuse to be a clone.

Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.