“Surely, I must at all times attempt to obey the law of the state. But when the will of God and the will of the state conflict, I am compelled to follow the will of God.”

Loving your enemy is manifest in putting your arms not around the man but around the social situation, to take power from those who misuse it at which point they can become human too.

I don’t want to seem intolerant to them and I think we have to say that to them with a great deal of affection, but remaining in the closet is the other side of the prejudice against gays. Because until you challenge it, you are not playing an active role in fighting it.

Twenty-five, 30 years ago, the barometer of human rights in the United States were black people. That is no longer true. The barometer for judging the character of people in regard to human rights is now those who consider themselves gay, homosexual, lesbian.

You have to join every other movement for the freedom of people.

Black gay activists should try to build coalitions of people for the elimination of all injustice.

I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.

The proof that one truly believes is in action.

I would say except when I have been attacked the black community has seldom seen fit to even mention the gay aspect. And since when I have been attacked I have usually been defended by the black community,

I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble.

We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers.

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination.

Let us be enraged about injustice, but let us not be destroyed by it.

When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. But when you’re right, you’re wrong anyhow.

The moral man is he who is opposed to injustice per se, opposed to injustice wherever he finds it; the moral man looks for injustice first of all in himself.

If people do not organize in the name of their interest, the world will not take them as being serious. And that is the chief reason that every person who is gay should join some gay organization. Because he must prove to the world that he cares about his own freedom.

To be afraid is to behave as if the truth were not true.

Each particular society begins to feel its strength, whence arises a state of war between different nations.

This is how Americans think. You believe that if something terrible happens to someone, they must have deserved it.

We are experiencing a real confusion here in the United States, you know. Why is it OK to drink, but it’s not OK to take drugs?

The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.

The United States and Britain loved him. He was supported until the last minute.

The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default.

There will always be nations. The United States will last a long, long time.

I think first of all, the United States has got to adopt a policy of befriending and creating allies around the world.