Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart.

What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be, to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated on the job.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.

There’s something about death that is comforting. The thought that you could die tomorrow frees you to appreciate your life now.

We are a nation of communities… a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

I learned that very often the most intolerant and narrow-minded people are the ones who congratulate themselves on their tolerance and open-mindedness.

Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults.

No one has been barred on account of his race from fighting or dying for America, there are no white or colored signs on the foxholes or graveyards of battle.

One of the many lessons that one learns in prison is, that things are what they are and will be what they will be.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

In God’s family, there are no outsiders, no enemies.

Women are the engine driving the growth in California’s economy. Women make California’s economy unique.

It’s always going to be a fight for anyone who isn’t an older white man. I want to fight for anyone who doesn’t have a fight.

As men are not able to fight against death, misery, ignorance, they have taken it into their heads, in order to be happy, not to think of them at all.

I want to support other women because of the opportunities I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of opportunities. What I try as a female director is to do the best job I can and, in the meantime, bring attention to as many other female directors and writers as I can.

You know, one race will not be a survivor if the other one dies, and that’s something that we should think about.

I’m not interested in more political or cultural combat.

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

Solidarity is an attitude of resistance, I suppose, or it should be.

Nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or herself alone, everyone has to inter-be with every one else. That is why, when you look outside, around you, you can see yourself.

Friends accept you the way you are.

The fact is, when men carry the same ideals in their hearts, nothing can isolate them – neither prison walls nor the sod of cemeteries. For a single memory, a single spirit, a single idea, a single conscience, a single dignity will sustain them all.

One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves.

Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

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.

Maturity is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter could be said to remedy anything.

The point in history at which we stand is full of promise and danger. The world will either move forward toward unity and widely shared prosperity – or it will move apart.

What’s done can’t be undone.

I love imperfections.

The reason why the world lacks unity, and lies broken and in heaps, is, because man is disunited with himself.

Music is one of the most powerful things the world has to offer. No matter what race or religion or nationality or sexual orientation or gender that you are, it has the power to unite us.

I’ve been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I’m driving, I hear I’m a moron. I like being a moron.

God doesn’t love me any more or less because I had some work done on my face. You know, I prayed about it a long, long, long, long, long time, because there again, I wouldn’t want to do anything that I felt was going to be offensive to God.

Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.

It is unnatural for a majority to rule, for a majority can seldom be organized and united for specific action, and a minority can.

There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America – there’s the United States of America.

All the religions of the world, while they may differ in other respects, unitedly proclaim that nothing lives in this world but Truth.

AIDS itself is subject to incredible stigma.

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

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

When you love and accept yourself, when you know who really cares about you, and when you learn from your mistakes, then you stop caring about what people who don’t know you think.

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

Reality has a way of intruding. Reality eventually intrudes on everything.

Among the friends of Union, there is great diversity of sentiment and of policy in regard to slavery and the African race among us.

We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?

Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.

My mother always used to say, ‚Well, if you had been born a little girl growing up in Egypt, you would go to church or go to worship Allah, but surely if those people are worshipping a God, it must be the same God‘ – that’s what she always said. The same God with different names.

Game’s always been open arms with me.

Taylor Swift’s audience can listen to me, but so can the street kids. I want to touch it all.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

It is true that classical libertarian thought is opposed to state intervention in social life, as a consequence of deeper assumptions about the human need for liberty, diversity, and free association.

The American people are so much stronger, so much more resolved than any enemy can fully understand.

Beauty is an outward gift, which is seldom despised, except by those to whom it has been refused.

We welcome the scrutiny of the world – because what you see in America is a country that has steadily worked to address our problems and make our union more perfect.

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you’re a human being, you feel, you suffer. You’re gay, you’re sick, you’re nervous or whatever.

I think that the idea of having a different approach to every single one of my albums is so exciting to me. I never want to make the same record twice. Why do it? What’s the point?

I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.