When you single out any particular group of people for secondary citizenship status, that’s a violation of basic human rights.

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.

You’re not better than anybody else, but you’re not less than anybody else. You’re a child of the Most High God.

You would have a huge statelessness problem if you don’t consider a child born abroad a U.S. citizen.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

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.

Man, all lives matter.

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

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

We do not hate as long as we still attach a lesser value, but only when we attach an equal or a greater value.

I refuse to allow any man-made differences to separate me from any other human beings.

All religions and all communities have the same rights, and it is my responsibility to ensure their complete and total protection. My government will not tolerate or accept any discrimination based on caste, creed and religion.

The American dream belongs to all of us.

Women feel empowered when they can do the things that are supposed to be only for men, you know? It breaks boundaries, it’s liberating, and it’s empowering when you feel like, ‚Well, I can do that, too.‘

If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge? We shouldn’t marginalise people for this. They must be integrated into society.

We must make it clear that a platform of ‚I hate gay men and women‘ is not a way to become president of the United States.

High-quality early-childhood programs and health coverage have expanded, and the number of mentoring relationships for at-risk youth has risen dramatically. That progress is encouraging, but it’s not evenly distributed.

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.

In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

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.

Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.

Women’s liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It’s men who are discriminated against. They can’t bear children. And no one is likely to do anything about that.

Barack Obama would not be President if he were dark skin. You know what I mean? That’s just the truth. I might not be as successful as I am now if I was dark skin.

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

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

I stand for anti-bigotry, anti-Semitism, and anti-racism.

That government is the strongest of which every man feels himself a part.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.

Generally speaking, men are held in great esteem in all parts of the world, so why shouldn’t women have their share? Soldiers and war heroes are honored and commemorated, explorers are granted immortal fame, martyrs are revered, but how many people look upon women too as soldiers?

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.

I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means excluding females).

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

Here’s the thing: every office I’ve run for I was the first to win. First person of color. First woman. First woman of color. Every time.

Freedom is not enough.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

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

We don’t want two-tier people in America. Those who are legal but not citizens, and citizens.

I cannot possibly believe that I have it made while so many black brothers and sisters are hungry, inadequately housed, insufficiently clothed, denied their dignity as they live in slums or barely exist on welfare.

We can’t have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.

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.

I have been working for Africans since I was 18, when I got involved with the Nelson Mandela concerts. I got involved with debt cancellation because Desmond Tutu demanded that the world respond to that situation.

The way people look at me these days – that’s the same way I looked at President Obama before I met him. We tend to forget that people who’ve attained a certain position are human.

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

The man who could go to Africa and rob her of her children, and then sell them into interminable bondage, with no other motive than that which is furnished by dollars and cents, is so much worse than the most depraved murderer that he can never receive pardon at my hand.

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it’s one that’s easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

A man is as good as he has to be, and a woman as bad as she dares.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.

The West Bank is essentially imprisoned.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could look forward to a whole world in which no child will be left behind?

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.

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.

There are thousands of Palestinians in prison virtually for no reason.

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince.

George Bush doesn’t care about black people.

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.

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.