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

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.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.

We need to show mercy. I mean, because as much mercy as you show people, that’s the mercy you’re going to be receiving.

Whereas it has long been known and declared that the poor have no right to the property of the rich, I wish it also to be known and declared that the rich have no right to the property of the poor.

You have young men of color in many communities who are more likely to end up in jail or in the criminal justice system than they are in a good job or in college. And, you know, part of my job, that I can do, I think, without any potential conflicts, is to get at those root causes.

Encouragement to others is something everyone can give. Somebody needs what you have to give. It may not be your money; it may be your time. It may be your listening ear. It may be your arms to encourage. It may be your smile to uplift. Who knows?

With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

White people just don’t want their slaves to be free. That’s the whole thing.

I’m a warrior for the middle class.

Social Security is based on a principle. It’s based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat.

I hope that people will finally come to realize that there is only one ‚race‘ – the human race – and that we are all members of it.

Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself aside to feel deeply for another person.

It’s hard to practice compassion when we’re struggling with our authenticity or when our own worthiness is off-balance.

Africa is a continent in flames. And deep down, if we really accepted that Africans were equal to us, we would all do more to put the fire out. We’re standing around with watering cans, when what we really need is the fire brigade.

The sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.

Jesus never mistreated anyone just because they mistreated Him. He confronted them in a spirit of gentleness and then continued to love them.

We can’t leave people in abject poverty, so we need to raise the standard of living for 80% of the world’s people, while bringing it down considerably for the 20% who are destroying our natural resources.

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.

I liberate minds with my music. That’s more important than liberating a few people from apartheid or whatever.

I don’t want you to apologize for being rich; I want you to acknowledge that in America, we all should have to pay our fair share.

Do not do unto others as you expect they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

You may be rich, but there is one thing you can’t afford – that is, if you are a good sort – you can’t afford to spend money on your own luxuries while there are people around you wanting the necessaries of life.

The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others.

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.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

The year 2100 will see eugenics universally established. In past ages, the law governing the survival of the fittest roughly weeded out the less desirable strains. Then man’s new sense of pity began to interfere with the ruthless workings of nature. As a result, we continue to keep alive and to breed the unfit.

We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.

It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that there are people who can’t or won’t see what Black Lives Matter is trying to accomplish.

We learn martial arts as helping weakness. You never fight for people to get hurt. You’re always helping people.

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him.

Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.

For years, decades, the system has taught us to stay quiet. They’ve made us believe that those who take to the streets to speak up are crazy, criminals, troublemakers.

It would make everything I worked for meaningless if baseball is integrated but political parties were segregated.

The distinguishing sign of slavery is to have a price, and to be bought for it.

As a Christian, you forgive, and you feed the hungry and clothe the naked, and you visit the sick and comfort the lonely. If I’m a true follower of my lord and saviour Jesus Christ, I got to do the things you’re supposed to be doing.

We have an obligation to help people that cannot help themselves. The mentally retarded, the physically retarded, et cetera.

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

China has many successful entrepreneurs and business people. I hope that more people of insight will put their talents to work to improve the lives of poor people in China and around the world, and seek solutions for them.

If you can, help others; if you cannot do that, at least do not harm them.

We are each made for goodness, love and compassion. Our lives are transformed as much as the world is when we live with these truths.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

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.

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.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

I think what you’re seeing is a profound recognition on the part of the American people that gays and lesbians and transgender persons are our brothers, our sisters, our children, our cousins, our friends, our co-workers, and that they’ve got to be treated like every other American. And I think that principle will win out.

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.

I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.

Today, Negroes play on every big league club and in every minor league. With millions of other Negroes in other walks of life, we are willing to stand up and be counted for what we believe in. In baseball or out, we are no longer willing to wait until Judgment Day for equality – we want it here on earth as well as in Heaven.

Stay humble and be concerned for the less fortunate.

To deprive a man of his natural liberty and to deny to him the ordinary amenities of life is worse then starving the body; it is starvation of the soul, the dweller in the body.

I should tie myself to no particular system of society other than of socialism.

The ideals and principles for which Dr King fought have never been forgotten and are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago.

One child must never be set above another, even in casual conversation, not to mention in speeches that circle the globe.

Whether a person is straight or gay, Republican, Democrat, good person, not a good person, they’re all welcome, because to me, church is a place you’re supposed to get healed and whole and loved.