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 always wanted more – more of everything.

During the 60’s, I was, in fact, very concerned about the civil rights movement.

The moral arc of the universe bends at the elbow of justice.

The harvest of old age is the recollection and abundance of blessing previously secured.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom.

Since the world has existed, there has been injustice. But it is one world, the more so as it becomes smaller, more accessible. There is just no question that there is more obligation that those who have should give to those who have nothing.

It’s not going to do any good to land on Mars if we’re stupid.

I think technology really increased human ability. But technology cannot produce compassion.

Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?

In the literal sense, there has been no relevant evolution since the trek from Africa. But there has been substantial progress towards higher standards of rights, justice and freedom – along with all too many illustrations of how remote is the goal of a decent society.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

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.

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.

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.‘

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

Life in general has never been even close to fair, so the pretense that the government can make it fair is a valuable and inexhaustible asset to politicians who want to expand government.

I will keep America moving forward, always forward, for a better America, for an endless enduring dream and a thousand Points of Light. This is my mission, and I will complete it.

Even though you are on the right track – you will get run over if you just sit there.

India should walk on her own shadow – we must have our own development model.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

War contains so much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason.

Begin – to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Man, all lives matter.

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews – everybody is created equally in the eyes of God.

There are grounds for cautious optimism that we may now be near the end ofthe search for the ultimate laws of nature.

We’ve never advocated violence; violence is inflicted upon us. But we do believe in self-defense for ourselves and for black people.

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

Conservatism discards Prescription, shrinks from Principle, disavows Progress; having rejected all respect for antiquity, it offers no redress for the present, and makes no preparation for the future.

Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ‚cause it’s life or death for real.

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

We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

All men are equal before fish.

Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you’re exactly the same.

A calling is you feel – you look out and see the need – maybe it’s the need for the poor, to help poor people. Maybe it’s the need to get involved in the race problem, as Martin Luther King was – felt called.

I believe you have to be willing to be misunderstood if you’re going to innovate.

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?

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

I’ve been fighting with Acorn, alongside Acorn, on issues you care about, my entire career.

What, sir, would the people of the earth be without woman? They would be scarce, sir, almighty scarce.

The lessons of history would suggest that civilisations move in cycles. You can track that back quite far – the Babylonians, the Sumerians, followed by the Egyptians, the Romans, China. We’re obviously in a very upward cycle right now, and hopefully that remains the case. But it may not.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

I don’t stand for the black man’s side, I don‘ t stand for the white man’s side. I stand for God’s side.

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.

Injustice in the end produces independence.

Those who ‚abjure‘ violence can do so only because others are committing violence on their behalf.

Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

There is no scriptural basis for segregation.

Let there be work, bread, water and salt for all.

We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old – and that’s the criterion by which I’ll be selecting my judges.

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.

The titanic effort that has brought liberation to South Africa, and ensured the total liberation of Africa, constitutes an act of redemption for the black people of the world.

With Kansas, I had a four-year deal. The initial two months were real tough. I had to adjust a lot. Then, things started looking up.

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.

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.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

We make the future sustainable when we invest in the poor, not when we insist on their suffering.

Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.

It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.