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

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

When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said – and this was 100 years ago in Germany and she was very open-minded – ‚It’s like hair color. It’s nothing. Some people are blond and some people have dark hair. It’s not a subject.‘ This was a very healthy attitude.

Capitalism has worked very well. Anyone who wants to move to North Korea is welcome.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

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.

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.

He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.

Young people these days don’t trust anything at all. They want to be free.

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.

When you are spiritually connected, you are not looking for occasions to be offended, and you are not judging and labeling others. You are in a state of grace in which you know you are connected to God and thus free from the effects of anyone or anything external to yourself.

I don’t think marriage is a civil right, but I think that being able to transfer property is a civil right.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I want a president who will teach our children that everyone in this country matters, a president who truly believes in the vision that our Founders put forth all those years ago that we are all created equal, each a beloved part of the great American story.

Most liberals think of civil liberties as their Achilles heel. It isn’t.

Where liberty is, there is my country.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

The crimes against Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and elsewhere, particularly Lebanon, are so shocking that the only emotionally valid reaction is rage and a call for extreme actions. But that does not help the victims. And, in fact, it’s likely to harm them.

I just know that I’m a fan of all different kinds of genres. You’re supposed to be free doing music, and that’s how I feel.

If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers.

Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of man will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint.

I never had that feeling that I had to carry the weight of somebody’s ignorance around with me. And that was true for racists who wanted to use the ‚n‘ word when talking about me or about my people, or the stupidity of people who really wanted to belittle other folks because they weren’t pretty or they weren’t rich or they weren’t clever.

Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.

America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children.

Without culture, and the relative freedom it implies, society, even when perfect, is but a jungle. This is why any authentic creation is a gift to the future.

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.

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

If you’re going to be crazy, you have to get paid for it or else you’re going to be locked up.

I speak to the black experience, but I am always talking about the human condition.

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.

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.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

I don’t have freedom in the United States to go into a public school and preach the Gospel, nor is a student free in a public school to pray, or a teacher free to read the Bible publicly to the students. At the same time, we have a great degree of freedom for which I am grateful.

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.

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

Peace is more important than all justice; and peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace.

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.

In this possibly terminal phase of human existence, democracy and freedom are more than just ideals to be valued – they may be essential to survival.

When the prison doors are opened, the real dragon will fly out.

When there is an income tax, the just man will pay more and the unjust less on the same amount of income.

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.

As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Hundreds of thousands of American servicemen and women are deployed across the world in the war on terror. By bringing hope to the oppressed, and delivering justice to the violent, they are making America more secure.

A new breeze is blowing, and a world refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man’s heart, if not in fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient, lifeless tree.

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

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.

I have spoken to Chinese leaders occasionally on human rights, but I’ve always done it in private.

We Americans… bear the ark of liberties of the world.

Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

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.

Children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

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.