“You cannot teach what you don’t know. You cannot give energy if you’re not on fire on the inside.”

When we were hit on 9/11 it took us a few weeks to get the coalition together because [George] Bush had come in with a kind of narrow ideology, looking at the world, I’d say, through a keyhole and not through a door.

We began to talk about one’s faith and the storm.

A check or credit card, a Gucci bag strap, anything of value will do. Give as you live.

I think the pain is subsiding. The back is getting better.

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow — red, yellow, brown, black and white — and we’re all precious in God’s sight.

Some people’s lives are worthy of taking the time to say goodbye to.

When I came here, I put my hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. I didn’t put my hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.

Just because a chicken was born in the oven doesn’t make it a biscuit.

A new leadership. A choice. A chance. Don’t cry about what you don’t have. Use what you got.

No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams.

Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow – red, yellow, brown, black and white -and we’re all precious in God’s sight.

I hear that melting pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven’t melted.

We were fundamentally the same. They expressed their anger more willingly. We developed the capacity to internalize our anger, using a nonviolent discipline.

The only justification for ever looking down on somebody is to pick them up.

Tears will get you sympathy, sweat will get you change.

In many ways, history is marked as ‘before’ and ‘after’ Rosa Parks. She sat down in order that we all might stand up, and the walls of segregation came down.

Hard it is to teach the old horse to amble anew.

Nature does not know extinction; all it knows is transformation. Everything science has taught me-and continues to teach me-strengthens my belief in the continuity of our spiritual existence after death. Nothing disappears without a trace.

Thirst teaches all animals to drink, but drunkenness belongs only to man.

Teaching is not filling up a pail, it is lighting a fire.

Only that which does not teach, which does not cry out, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.

Those that have lived longer than us always have something to teach us, that we can take with us for the rest of our lives.

I use the words you taught me. If they don’t mean anything any more, teach me others. Or let me be silent.

What is it the Bible teaches us? – raping, cruelty, and murder. What is it the New Testament teaches us? – to believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married, and the belief of this debauchery is called faith.