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

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

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.

I have been influenced in my thinking by both west and east.

We’ve come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

I used to let other people’s struggles affect my happiness. If they weren’t happy, there was no way I was going to be happy. The opposite was also true: If I wasn’t happy, I didn’t want anyone around me to be happy.

The minute you got the Nobel Peace Prize, things that I said yesterday, with nobody paying too much attention, I say the same things after I got it – oh! It was quite crucial for people, and it helped our morale because apartheid did look invincible.

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?

As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.

Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.

Racism is real in this country.

Everything is possible, from angels to demons to economists and politicians.

For a tear is quickly dried, especially when shed for the misfortunes of others.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike.

You have your ideology and I have mine.

All people are born alike – except Republicans and Democrats.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

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

Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.

Sometimes it’s a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

It’s no accident many accuse me of conducting public affairs with my heart instead of my head. Well, what if I do? Those who don’t know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either.

Even in this globalised world, London is still the standard for our times. The city has embraced the world’s diversity and represents the finest in human achievements.

The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.

I think many people in my community had very different kinds of mothers: they had mothers who acquiesced in the system of male and white-supremacist domination, and my mother never did. She just could not do it. It just wasn’t in her.

Listen, I think that people want a president who is going to be interested in the things that keep them up at night, the things that are weighing on them, the things that are debilitating and can be addressed.

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

Love other human beings as you would love yourself.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.

Sabotage did not involve loss of life, and it offered the best hope for future race relations. Bitterness would be kept to a minimum and, if the policy bore fruit, democratic government could become a reality.

Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

A lot of people have it a lot worse than you do.

We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.

Do all children have some inherent right to live in America if they have done nothing wrong? If not, then why should the children of illegal immigrants have such a right?

We don’t need to share the same opinions as others, but we need to be respectful.

What I believe unites the people of this nation, regardless of race or region or party, young or old, rich or poor, is the simple, profound belief in opportunity for all – the notion that if you work hard and take responsibility, you can get ahead.

I’m not focused on the gay and lesbian movement.

Homophobia is real in this country.

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

I try to see the good in everybody, and I don’t care who people are as long as they’re themselves, whatever that is.

I hate to see anybody sink. I hate to see anybody lose their dream, lose their home, something like that.

If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.

There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of 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.

If you want to make beautiful music, you must play the black and the white notes together.

Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.

As long as I am alive, I am fully committed to amity between Tibetans and Chinese. Otherwise there’s no use.

‚Tis not enough to help the feeble up, but to support them after.

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.

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

Right now, when we’re hearing so much disturbing and hateful rhetoric, it is so important to remember that our diversity has been – and will always be – our greatest source of strength and pride here in the United States.

Here’s the thing. We do a movie with a predominantly black cast, and it’s put in a category of being a black film. When other movies are done with a predominantly white cast, we don’t call them a white film. I’m trying to remove the stigma off things they call black films.

In my research, I’ve interviewed a lot of people who never fit in, who are what you might call ‚different‘: scientists, artists, thinkers. And if you drop down deep into their work and who they are, there is a tremendous amount of self-acceptance.

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

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.

The healthy man does not torture others – generally it is the tortured who turn into torturers.

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

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

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

We have communion with Christ in His thoughts, views, and purposes; for His thoughts are our thoughts according to our capacity and sanctity. Believers take the same view of matters as Jesus does; that which pleases Him pleases them, and that which grieves His grieves them also.