To the best of my judgment, I have labored for, and not against, the Union. As I have not felt, so I have not expressed any harsh sentiment towards our Southern brethren. I have constantly declared, as I really believed, the only difference between them and us is the difference of circumstances.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

Music is the melody whose text is the world.

I’m aware that, whatever the circumstances, there will always be speculation about me.

We’re all caught up in circumstances, and we’re all good and evil. When you’re really hungry, for instance, you’ll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing – well, maybe that’s too strong – but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.

I know for sure that loves saves me and that it is here to save us all.

To correct a natural indifference I was placed half-way between misery and the sun. Misery kept me from believing that all was well under the sun, and the sun taught me that history wasn’t everything.

Faith indeed tells what the senses do not tell, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them and not contrary to them.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, so I don’t have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.

Eight years ago, you may remember Hillary and I were rivals for the Democratic nomination. We battled for a year and a half. Let me tell you, it was tough, because Hillary was tough. I was worn out. She was doing everything I was doing, but just like Ginger Rogers, it was backwards in heels.

There are two great forces, God’s force of good and the devil’s force of evil, and I believe Satan is alive and he is working, and he is working harder than ever, and we have many mysteries that we don’t understand.

I believe God gives you the grace to do what you need to do.

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired.

The most positive men are the most credulous.

There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.

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

In too many communities, too many young men of color are left behind and seen only as objects of fear. Through initiatives like My Brother’s Keeper, I’m personally committed to changing both perception and reality.

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.

They call upon us to supply American boys to do the job that Asian boys should do.

A belief is purely an individual matter, and you cannot and must not organize it. If you do, it becomes dead, crystallized; it becomes a creed, a sect, a religion, to be imposed on others.

Gay marriage is going to happen. It must.

The gods too are fond of a joke.

Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.

We pledge ourselves to liberate all our people from the continuing bondage of poverty, deprivation, suffering, gender and other discrimination.

Sure I believe in God and the Devil, but they don’t have to have pitchforks and a long white beard.

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

Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.

There really is no difference between the bully and the victim.

Nobody has ever convinced me that race is real.

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.

What we wish, we readily believe, and what we ourselves think, we imagine others think also.

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.

If we do not lift up women and families, everyone will fall short.

It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.

Back in my days as a chemistry student, I used to be quite a technocrat. I was firmly convinced that scientists would have cornered God and photographed Him in color by 1951.

Before the effect one believes in different causes than one does after the effect.

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

A little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion.

I think that everybody needs four things in life. Everybody needs something to do regardless of age. Everybody needs someone to love. Everybody needs something to hope for, and, of course, everybody needs someone to believe in.

To those whose God is honor; only disgrace is a sin.

I don’t believe in death, neither in flesh nor in spirit.

I believe nothing happens by mistake. You know, the universe has a divine plan. That sounds dramatic.

Too many Christians live their lives like slaves – to the devil – because they believe his lies more than they trust God.

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

The beginning of reform is not so much to equalize property as to train the noble sort of natures not to desire more, and to prevent the lower from getting more.

It’s amazing how people will give when you don’t ask. Many of them send money because they believe in the message.

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.

You’ll see it when you believe it.

To terrify children with the image of hell… to consider women an inferior creation. Is that good for the world?

To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.

I don’t believe in the after life, although I am bringing a change of underwear.

The end of labor is to gain leisure.

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.

That all men are equal is a proposition to which, at ordinary times, no sane human being has ever given his assent.

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

I’m not for gay marriage, but I’m not for discriminating against people.

We’re in the last days, man – I truly, in my heart, believe that. It’s written. I could go on with biblical situations and things my grandma told me. But it’s about being at peace with myself and making good with the people around me.

Was Jesus the son of God? Yes. But so are you. You just haven’t realized it yet.