“It doesn’t matter how strong your opinions are. If you don’t use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem.”

Lesbian and gay people are a permanent part of the American workforce, who currently have no protection from the arbitrary abuse of their rights on the job.

Nonviolence is a method that transforms, first of all, the individual once you understand it and embrace it. It begins with you and, if you can, about transforming individuals so that they love unconditionally.

Money is necessary — both to support a family and to advance causes one believes in.

I always knew that I was called to do something. I didn’t know what, but I finally rationalized after I met Martin [Luther King, Jr.] and it took a lot of praying to discover this, that this was probably what God had called me to do, to marry him.

Hate is too great a burden to bear.

When Good Friday comes, these are the moments in life when we feel there’s no hope. But then, Easter comes.

Women, in general, are not part of the corruption of the past, so they can give a new kind of leadership, a new image for mankind.

If Martin [Luther King, Jr.]’s philosophy had been embraced and lived out in Iraq and other places, we wouldn’t have bin Ladens.

Mama and Daddy King represent the best in manhood and womanhood, the best in a marriage, the kind of people we are trying to become.

Without Coretta Scott King, there would not have been a Martin Luther King, Jr. in the way that we know him.

All we seek is an America where every person is given the chance to productively contribute to his country and where he can receive a fair and equitable share of the wealth that production creates.

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.

There is a spirit and a need and a man at the beginning of every great human advance. Every one of these must be right for that particular moment of history, or nothing happens.

Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.

I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.

This was really what I was supposed to be doing, and it was a great blessing to have discovered this, and to be doing what was God’s will for your life.

Climate change should be seen as the greatest challenge to face man and treated as a much bigger priority in the United Kingdom.

It takes a habit to break a habit. You can pray every day for a generous heart, but until you start acting in that direction, nothing’s going to change.

Love is like the North Star. In a changing world, it’s always constant.

We look in our own backyard and say, ‘How do we help at-risk families, at risk youth? How do we think through some of the problems affecting the Pacific Northwest and make some change there?’

After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it’s worse than ever.

Forgiveness changes the way we remember.

I have a big fear of change, or negative change, anyway. I’m basically the same person I was when I won ‘Idol,’ or when I was 10.

Where there’s no progress, there’s no growth. If there’s no growth, there’s no life. Environments void of change are eventually void of life.