When you sing with a group of people, you learn how to subsume yourself into a group consciousness because a capella singing is all about the immersion of the self into the community. That’s one of the great feelings – to stop being me for a little while and to become us. That way lies empathy, the great social virtue.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

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

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Understanding is a two-way street.

What was important to me was entertaining the audience, and whether that meant winning, losing, singing, or whatever it was on the live show we were doing every week, which was awesome, I was game for it.

If you are not being bullied all I would say – cause I like to talk about the other side of it as well – is you know, be someone that nurtures, and if there’s someone in your class that maybe doesn’t have a lot of friends, be the person that sits with them in the cafeteria sometimes; be the bigger person.

I’ve conducted the Boston Pops! Imagine that! Me! Maya Angelou! I’ve sang and danced at La Scala!

To add value to others, one must first value others.

I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.

I think love is one of the purest things you can sing about. One of the best things you can sing about.

The key thing about a book is that you lose yourself in the author’s world.

Never find fault with the absent.

He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.

We don’t get to know people when they come to us; we must go to them to find out what they are like.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends.

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.

We awaken in others the same attitude of mind we hold toward them.

He who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything either.

I think tolerance and acceptance and love is something that feeds every community.

Sometimes, if you begin to sing in a halfhearted mood, you can sing yourself up the ladder. Singing will often make the heart rise.

We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?

The funny thing is that I feel close to all my characters. Deep, deep inside them all.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power to that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

The arts don’t exist in isolation.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

I knew I wanted to do something creative. I didn’t think I’d have the luxury of doing something like that, because I didn’t know anyone who had pursued anything they really adored, but I had dreams for singing or writing.

Feeling like you’re respected among the people who do the same thing you do is incredible and necessary.

I’m a people pleaser. I hold a lot of things in. I’m always making sure everybody is okay. I usually don’t rage; I usually don’t curse.

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

I do believe that in order to be a successful negotiator that as a diplomat, you have to be able to put yourself into the other person’s shoes. Unless you can understand what is motivating them, you are never going to be able to figure out how to solve a particular problem.

Charity begins at home, and justice begins next door.

Occasionally I’ve seen children become heavy-handed and insensitive when dealing with their aging parents, and it only caused resentment and hard feelings.

The government is us; we are the government, you and I.

In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.

I’ve met some Evertonians in the street, and they’ve been friendly. I’ve had taxi drivers who have been Everton fans. They’ve been really nice.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

I have a collective sense of suffering.

I always wanted to know, and I always used to daydream, about what it would be like to stand on a really big stage and sing songs for a lot of people, songs that I had written… Daydreaming was kind of my No. 1 thing when I was little, because I didn’t have much of a social life going on.

Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

If you would judge, understand.

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

It’s important that we invest in America – literally. The terrorists wanted to destroy our economy, and we can’t let our system fall apart. We also have to invest in one another.

I’m not happy all the time, and I wouldn’t want to be because that would make me a shallow person. But I do try to find the good in everybody.

Respect the burden.

All my adult life people have been helping me.

I am for people. I can’t help it.

I come from a poor family, I have seen poverty. The poor need respect, and it begins with cleanliness.

You never make fun of anybody with a club foot or a withered arm, but it’s open season on anybody who stutters.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That’s not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.

I have to be in tune. All the time. I have to be in tune with my husband, where he is, how he’s feeling. I have to be in tune with where my family is.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

I’d love to do a musical. I’ve been known to have a good step or two. I’m half Samoan, you know, and part of our culture is singing and dancing daily.

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.

Listen with your eyes for feelings.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

There were people who incorporated melody before me, but I would deem myself the first person to successfully rap and sing.