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.

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

The entering class I joined in 1956 included just nine women, up from five in the then second-year class, and only one African American. All professors, in those now-ancient days, were of the same race and sex.

There are no favorites in my office. I treat them all with the same general inconsideration.

I think that there’s no doubt that as I see friends, families, children of gay couples who are thriving, you know, that has an impact on how I think about these issues.

We believe that every single child has boundless promise, no matter who they are, where they come from, or how much money their parents have. We’ve got to remember that. We believe that each of these young people is a vital part of the great American story.

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.

We are all alike, on the inside.

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

You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.

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

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

The little man is still a man.

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do.

A black person grows up in this country – and in many places – knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

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

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they’re men or women.

Infinites, when considered absolutely without any restriction or limitation, are neither equal nor unequal, nor have any certain proportion one to another, and therefore, the principle that all infinites are equal is a precarious one.

What has happened at Guantanamo Bay… does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think its wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.

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

The day will come – and it is not far off – when the legacy of Lincoln will finally be fulfilled at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, when a black man or woman will sit in the Oval Office. When that day comes, the most remarkable thing about it will be how naturally it occurs.

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.

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

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

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.

All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they are all going to die.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

An index is a great leveller.

We must begin seeing other creatures as equal. Existence makes us all equal.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.

The man who loves other countries as much as his own stands on a level with the man who loves other women as much as he loves his own wife.

Our constitution is a ray of hope: H for harmony, O for Opportunity, P for people’s participation and E for equality.

I got my love of animals from the Dr. Doolittle books and my love of Africa from the Tarzan novels. I remember my mum taking me to the first Tarzan film, which starred Johnny Weissmuller, and bursting into tears. It wasn’t what I had imagined at all.

I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Sikhs. I’m not in favour of dividing Hindus and Christians. All the citizens, all the voters, are my countrymen.

Some of the most moving experiences I’ve had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

I love diversity.

A right delayed is a right denied.

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country.

Man, all lives matter.

I will far rather see the race of man extinct than that we should become less than beasts by making the noblest of God’s creation, woman, the object of our lust.

The murder of Lumumba, in which the U.S. was involved, in the Congo destroyed Africa’s major hope for development. Congo is now total horror story, for years.

I think same sex couples should be able to get married.

Justice is the set and constant purpose which gives every man his due.

I am a strong believer that without justice, there is no peace. No lasting peace, anyway.

States should have the right to enact laws… particularly to end the inhumane practice of ending a life that otherwise could live.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who’s spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

God tells us not to judge one another, no matter what anyone’s sexual preferences are or if they’re black, brown or purple.

For Africa to move forward, you’ve really got to get rid of malaria.

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

The Arab population of Palestine are victims of genocidal actions; their lands are confiscated or deprived of water supplies in the semi-desert areas, and their homes are destroyed with heavy wrecking equipment.

As I got older, my pops tried to keep me involved with the culture by telling me the stories of the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, how he came to America, and about our family back home, because all that side of my family – my aunties, grandparents – is in Africa.

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.

What do I care about Jupiter? Justice is a human issue, and I do not need a god to teach it to me.

Europe became rich because it exploited Africa; and the Africans know that.

The American dream belongs to all of us.