“An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed in retaliation.”

Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life.

If you give your life to a cause in which you believe, and if it is right and just, and if your life comes to an end as a result of this, then your life could not have been spent in a more redemptive way. I think that is what my husband has done.

I’m fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes – the finer things of life – would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

If American women would increase their voting turnout by ten percent, I think we would see an end to all of the budget cuts in programs benefiting women and children.

If sexual relations between consenting adults are not part of the right to privacy guaranteed by the Constitution, then American democracy is in trouble.

Violence diminishes our humanity.

A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing at all to protect traditional marriages.

Because Dr. King was human and not divine – although we think he was divine, he was just a man, an extraordinary man, but a man – and he would get depressed from time to time and disappointed about all kinds of things relative to the movement.

It’s going to take an act of Congress to deal with poverty and hunger, not only in this country, but throughout the world. We have the resources but we don’t have the will.

As an African American child growing up in the segregated South, I was told, one way or another, almost every day of my life, that I wasn’t as good as a white child.

Behind every good man, there’s a good woman reminding you I knew you when you didn’t have nothing.

Nonviolence first changes the individual.

We have to launch a national campaign against homophobia in the black community.

Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

Women, if the soul of the nation is to be saved, I believe that you must become its soul.

When the heart is right, the mind and the body will follow.

The challenge before us right now is still immense and growing, and so is the need for bold action to fight this pandemic.

Mental toughness is a state of mind – you could call it character in action.

Nature is relentless and unchangeable, and it is indifferent as to whether its hidden reasons and actions are understandable to man or not.

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them.

You can start changing our world for the better daily, no matter how small the action.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.

When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?