The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerance. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors, and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.

Foreignness is all around. Only in the heart of the heart of the country, namely the heart of the United States, can you avoid such a thing. In the center of an empire, you can think of your experience as universal. Outside the empire or on the fringes of the empire, you cannot.

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.

If it doesn’t work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain.

The bravest sight in the world is to see a great man struggling against adversity.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Too often the great decisions are originated and given form in bodies made up wholly of men, or so completely dominated by them that whatever of special value women have to offer is shunted aside without expression.

Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all – the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don’t want to be a colony in a nation.

We come bulletproof in Ireland. We’re reared tough, and we fight.

Racism is real in this country.

No sanction can stand against ignited minds.

I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.

Fighting for one’s freedom, struggling towards being free, is like struggling to be a poet or a good Christian or a good Jew or a good Muslim or good Zen Buddhist. You work all day long and achieve some kind of level of success by nightfall, go to sleep and wake up the next morning with the job still to be done. So you start all over again.

If you stop struggling, then you stop life.

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

It is folly for an eminent man to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected with it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age in the world, have passed through this fiery persecution.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

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.

I know I do not exaggerate, unconsciously and unintentionally, the scantiness of my resources and the difficulty of my life… I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a vagabond.

When I was 8 years old I became a mute and was a mute until I was 13, and I thought of my whole body as an ear, so I can go into a crowd and sit still and absorb all sound. That talent or ability has lasted and served me until today.

When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man’s concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.

Until the great mass of the people shall be filled with the sense of responsibility for each other’s welfare, social justice can never be attained.

Religions in general have to rediscover their roots. In Hinduism and the Koran, animals are described as equals. If you walk into a cathedral and look at the decorations of early Christianity, there are vines, animals, creatures and birds thriving all over the stonework.

I got the stern end of the stick. It was kind of that iron fist. I am who I am today because of my mother.

Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.

Take me seriously. Take me and my role seriously. Take my talent seriously.

There will be gay couples; it will exist. It is not very nice that people who are married – who divorce in three seconds – don’t want protection for the others. The legal system should protect everyone, not just the few people who think they are above everybody else because they are married.

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don’t have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I’m sure he didn’t call everybody jerks.

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.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

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?

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

I am God’s vessel. But my greatest pain in life is that I will never be able to see myself perform live.

We have the tendency to run away from suffering and to look for happiness. But, in fact, if you have not suffered, you have no chance to experience real happiness.

Loss is nothing else but change, and change is Nature’s delight.

Founding a company is hard. Most of it isn’t smooth. You’ll have to make very hard decisions. You have to fire a few people. Therefore, if you don’t believe in your mission, giving up is easy. The majority of founders give up. But the best founders don’t give up.

Remorse sleeps during prosperity but awakes bitter consciousness during adversity.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt that same kind of peace, the kind of serenity that I felt after acknowledging that maybe I was going to die of this TB.

Homophobia is real in this country.

Dissident intellectuals aren’t all beautiful.

I was born on a full moon. Both my children were born on full moons, too. Some people say that’s scary. It is what it is, man, I don’t be trippin‘. I couldn’t tell God when I wanted to be born.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

Difficulties are things that show a person what they are.

I don’t think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

It’s a good thing I was born a girl, otherwise I’d be a drag queen.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they’re being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I’m black. I tell them, ‚Don’t stop now. If I shot somebody you’d mention it.‘

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

If you are an American, you must allow all ideas to circulate freely in your community, not merely your own.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

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

‚American Graffiti‘ was unpleasant because of the fact that there was no money, no time, and I was compromising myself to death.

Most of us are about as eager to be changed as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock.

In fact, my courage and my bravery at a young age was the thing I was bullied for, a kind of ‚Who do you think you are?‘

I’ve had two cancer bouts in my years on the Court, and the first one, Justice O’Connor told me, ‚Now, you do the chemotherapy on Friday because you’ll get over it during the weekend and you can be back in court on Monday.‘

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.