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

The ‚Third World‘ is a term I don’t like very much because we’re all one world. I want people to know that the largest part of humanity is suffering.

If you insist upon fighting to protect me, or ‚our‘ country, let it be understood soberly and rationally between us that you are fighting to gratify a sex instinct which I cannot share; to procure benefits where I have not shared and probably will not share.

Sexism is real in this country.

In the 1940s, traveling for an African was a complicated process. All Africans over the age of sixteen were compelled to carry ‚Native passes‘ issued by the Native Affairs Department and were required to show that pass to any white policeman, civil servant, or employer. Failure to do so could mean arrest, trial, a jail sentence or fine.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

We can continue to learn generation after generation and now is time to begin to learn how to love in a non-discriminatory way because we are intelligent enough, but we are not loving enough as a species.

Science is a beautiful gift to humanity; we should not distort it.

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.‘

In matters of truth and justice, there is no difference between large and small problems, for issues concerning the treatment of people are all the same.

Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world. This is the most beautiful quality in a revolutionary.

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’m not denyin‘ the women are foolish. God Almighty made ‚em to match the men.

We can’t afford to be killing one another.

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the Universe. That makes us something very special.

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.

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

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.

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.

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.

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

To like an individual because he’s black is just as insulting as to dislike him because he isn’t white.

Civil disobedience is – it’s no fun.

Slavery takes hold of few, but many take hold of slavery.

Show me the person you honor, for I know better by that the kind of person you are. For you show me what your idea of humanity is.

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

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that changed their abortion laws before Roe are not going to change back. So we have a policy that only affects poor women, and it can never be otherwise.

What I believe is that marriage is between a man and a woman, but what I also believe is that we have an obligation to make sure that gays and lesbians have the rights of citizenship that afford them visitations to hospitals, that allow them to be, to transfer property between partners, to make certain that they’re not discriminated on the job.

I love diversity.

Even after Independence, we have had to face the poison of casteism and communalism. How long these evils will continue? Whom does it benefit?

I think organized labor is a necessary part of democracy. Organized labor is the only way to have fair distribution of wealth.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.

We can’t afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Fear makes us feel our humanity.

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

You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don’t want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don’t want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.

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.

It’s impossible to live a life totally free of feelings. God created all of us to be emotional creatures, and feelings are a big part of our lives.

The U.S. military was segregated ‚til the Korean War, and the blacks in World War Two were totally segregated.

I’m opposed to any policy that would deny in our country any human being from access to public safety, public education, or public health, period.

If I have a platform and a voice, I should use it for my people.

Rendition is just sending people abroad to be tortured.

Bigotry is probably the thing I detest most.

Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things – he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I had had a continuing smoldering fury about the treatment of Jews in Germany.

Culture makes people understand each other better. And if they understand each other better in their soul, it is easier to overcome the economic and political barriers. But first they have to understand that their neighbour is, in the end, just like them, with the same problems, the same questions.

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.

My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.

I have some good friends of my own who happen to be gay, and when it comes to gay, straight, or whatever, I’m for anything life-affirmative. I’m for gay power, straight power, male power, female power; everybody should feel empowered without oppressing anyone who’s different.

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

It’s a fundamental, social attitude that the 1% supports symphonies and operas and doesn’t support Johnny learning to program hip-hop beats. When I put it like that, it sounds like, ‚Well, yeah,‘ but you start to think, ‚Why not, though?‘ What makes one more valuable than another?

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.

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

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

World belongs to humanity, not this leader, that leader or that king or prince or religious leader. World belongs to humanity.

We who follow the teachings of Elijah Muhammad don’t want to be forced to integrate. Integration is wrong. We don’t want to live with the white man; that’s all.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.