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.

We are all different. There is no such thing as a standard or run-of-the-mill human being, but we share the same human spirit.

Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man.

Africa is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

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

Clever and attractive women do not want to vote; they are willing to let men govern as long as they govern men.

I love the women’s movement, and I never thought of it as belonging to any particular segment of the population.

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.

Gentleness, self-sacrifice and generosity are the exclusive possession of no one race or religion.

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Everybody should have a fair deal; everybody should have the chance to life in this world. If we were evolved as human beings, we would hopefully be able to alleviate suffering in the world.

Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.

I want a president with a record of public service: someone whose life’s work shows our children that we don’t chase form and fortune for ourselves; we fight to give everyone a chance to succeed.

I wish people would love everybody else the way they love me. It would be a better world.

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.

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.

Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

When you think of the sort of things that happen when a genocide happens, it’s again not people who are intrinsically evil.

Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.

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

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

In countries where innocent people are dying, the leaders are following their blood rather than their brains.

Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.

Real education enhances the dignity of a human being and increases his or her self-respect. If only the real sense of education could be realized by each individual and carried forward in every field of human activity, the world will be so much a better place to live in.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

I was born in Africa. I came to California because it’s really where new technologies can be brought to fruition, and I don’t see a viable competitor.

Men and women aren’t the same. And they won’t be the same. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be treated fairly.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America.

You can’t put democracy and freedom back into a box.

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

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

You know that being an American is more than a matter of where your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.

All of these young people have some kind of potential in them. And if we don’t invest in them as a nation, regardless of where they come from or what color they are, if we don’t invest in them, we lose.

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.

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

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

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?

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.

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

In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free – honorable alike in that we give and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

‚Whole Women’s Health‘ made it very clear that poor women were no longer going to be left out.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.

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.

Stupid as a man, say the women: cowardly as a woman, say the men. Stupidity in a woman is unwomanly.

When you’re doing a film and the majority of the film is cast black, for me, it’s most important to get people to view those movies as just movies, as just good movies. At the end of the day, regardless of the color of the cast, we’re all doing the same thing in this business: trying to make a good film.

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.

Freedom is not enough.

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

I’m not for gay marriage, but I’m not for discriminating against people.

I can’t help the way you was born if you was gay.

If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.

My aim is to make the poor look rich and the rich look poor.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there’s no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

Guantanamo is still open, but it’s unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection.

Once made equal to man, woman becomes his superior.

Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would be standing here as the first African-American First Lady.