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.

It’s difficult to believe that people are still starving in this country because food isn’t available.

White people just don’t want their slaves to be free. That’s the whole thing.

All of us take offense to anyone who reaps the rewards of living in America without taking on the responsibilities of living in America. And undocumented immigrants who desperately want to embrace those responsibilities see little option but to remain in the shadows, or risk their families being torn apart.

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

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

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?

It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

We continue to recognize the greater ability of some to earn more than others. But we do assert that the ambition of the individual to obtain for him a proper security is an ambition to be preferred to the appetite for great wealth and great power.

Eternal principles that govern happiness apply equally to all.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

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

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

Science is global. Einstein’s equation, E=mc2, has to reach everywhere. Science is a beautiful gift to humanity, we should not distort it. Science does not differentiate between multiple races.

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.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Something’s very wrong with a nation that would rather spend money on war than take care of its children.

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

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

I get that racism exists, but it’s not a catalyst for my content. I don’t need to talk about race to have material. My style of comedy is more self-deprecating. I think that makes me more relatable. When you deal with ‚topics‘ – race, white versus black – you’re not separating from the pack. You’re doing what everybody else is doing.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

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

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Sexism is everywhere, bro. I don’t know if it’s ever not somewhere.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

No one is pro-abortion.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

The state controlling a woman would mean denying her full autonomy and full equality.

The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.

It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in that Declaration of Independence.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.

Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare.

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

The truth is, in order to get things like universal health care and a revamped education system, then someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

If physical death is the price that I must pay to free my white brothers and sisters from a permanent death of the spirit, then nothing can be more redemptive.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

I definitely think, generally, rap is misogynistic.

The reason people think it’s important to be white is that they think it’s important not to be black.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

Wouldn’t it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?

In some respects, South African apartheid was more vicious than Israeli practices, and in some respects the opposite is true.

Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.

In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants.

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?

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 believe in the spirit of equality and the spirit of this country as one of love and compassion and kindness.

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.

Who is richer? The man who is seen, but cannot see? Or the man who is not being seen, but can see?

That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.

Let’s be clear about this, and let’s be clear: we should not be creating incentives to house people in prison. We should be creating incentives instead to shut the revolving door into prison.

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

A right delayed is a right denied.

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.

And we have done more in the two and a half years that I’ve been in here than the previous 43 Presidents to uphold that principle, whether it’s ending ‚don’t ask, don’t tell,‘ making sure that gay and lesbian partners can visit each other in hospitals, making sure that federal benefits can be provided to same-sex couples.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

The trouble with our people is as soon as they got out of slavery they didn’t want to give the white man nothing else. But the fact is, you got to give em something. Either your money, your land, your woman or your ass.