People who have been hardworking, tax paying, those people ought to be given an opportunity to be on a track that leads towards citizenship, and if that happened, then they wouldn’t be prey to the employers who say, ‚We want you because we know that you work for a salary we could not lawfully pay anyone else.‘

Government can provide opportunity. But opportunity means nothing unless people are prepared to seize it.

I have a feeling that I make a very good friend, and I’m a good mother, and a good sister, and a good citizen. I am involved in life itself – all of it. And I have a lot of energy and a lot of nerve.

Every citizen has the real right to receive general education and professional training at no cost, something that the United States has not been able to ensure for all its inhabitants.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

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

Let me state the obvious. Illegal immigration is illegal, duh.

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.

We don’t want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

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.

One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

There is but one stage for the peasant and the actor.

Now, as a nation, we don’t promise equal outcomes, but we were founded on the idea everybody should have an equal opportunity to succeed. No matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, you can make it. That’s an essential promise of America. Where you start should not determine where you end up.

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

Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.

If you want to see the true measure of a man, watch how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

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

I’ve never doubted that apartheid – because it was of itself fundamentally, intrinsically evil – was going to bite the dust eventually.

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

The highly functional infrastructure that surrounds us, particularly in the West, is a gift from our ancestors: the comparatively uncorrupt political and economic systems, the technology, the wealth, the lifespan, the freedom, the luxury, and the opportunity.

Eight years ago, you may remember Hillary and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination. We battled for a year and a half. Let me tell you, it was tough, because Hillary was tough. I was worn out. She was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers, it was backwards in heels.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

Opportunity makes a thief.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

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.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

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.

Be as polite to the custodian as you are to the chairman of the board.

We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

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?

I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader – or any person – in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks.

Women feel empowered when they can do the things that are supposed to be only for men, you know? It breaks boundaries, it’s liberating, and it’s empowering when you feel like, ‚Well, I can do that, too.‘

I think the notion that we have all the democracy that money can buy strays so far from what our democracy is supposed to be.

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 disagree with any policy that would turn America’s back on people who are fleeing harm. I frankly believe that it is contrary to everything that we have symbolically and actually said we stand for.

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

The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

My father will anticipate everything. He will leave you and me no chance to do a great and brilliant deed.

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

Remember, it’s as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense human rights invented America.

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

Apple has given me a platform to spread music. They’re giving us Latinos a chance to shine.

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

If you’re white and you’re wrong, then you’re wrong; if you’re black and you’re wrong, you’re wrong. People are people. Black, blue, pink, green – God make no rules about color; only society make rules where my people suffer, and that why we must have redemption and redemption now.

If we help an educated man’s daughter to go to Cambridge are we not forcing her to think not about education but about war? – not how she can learn, but how she can fight in order that she might win the same advantages as her brothers?

Selling an electric sports car creates an opportunity to fundamentally change the way America drives.

God can cause opportunity to find you. He has unexpected blessings where you suddenly meet the right person, or suddenly your health improves, or suddenly you’re able to pay off your house. That’s God shifting things in your favor.

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

May we do good everywhere as we have opportunity, and results will not be wanting!

And every human being is precious.

There are a lot of good women in New York.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

The voting booth joint is a great leveler; the whole neighborhood – rich, poor, old, young, decrepit and spunky – they all turn out in one day.

I say to you quite frankly that the time for racial discrimination is over.