“If I had to choose between baseball’s Hall of Fame and first class citizenship for all of my people. I would say first-class citizenship.”

How you played in yesterday’s game is all that counts.

I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

I never cared about acceptance as much as I cared about respect.

Baseball is like a poker game. Nobody wants to quit when he’s losing; nobody wants you to quit when you’re ahead.

The most luxurious possession, the richest treasure anybody has, is his personal dignity.

The many of us who attain what we may and forget those who help us along the line we’ve got to remember that there are so many others to pull along the way. The farther they go, the further we all go.

Life is not a spectator sport.

At the beginning of the World Series of 1947, I experienced a completely new emotion when the National Anthem was played. This time, I thought, it is being played for me, as much as for anyone else.

Relationships may change throughout the gift of time, memories stay the same forever in my mind.

The right of every American to first-class citizenship is the most important issue of our time.

I know that I am a black man in a white world. I know that I never had it made.

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

Pop flies, in a sense, are just a diversion for a second baseman. Grounders are his stock trade.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

You’re going to be a great player, kid.

Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.

We must see that regional imbalances in the growth of various parties of the country are removed and all the states progress evenly. We shall ensure that all citizens of the country get full opportunity to contribute their might towards India’s progress.

No man is a good citizen, a good neighbor, a good friend, or a good man just because he obeys the law. The intrinsic worth is determined mainly by the intrinsic make-up.

No greater victory can be won by citizens or soldiers than to transform temporary foes into permanent friends.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

My mother was a free-spirited clinical therapist, and I had the most hard-working father, a television lighting director by trade. My mum raised me to be a global citizen, with eyes open to sometimes harsh realities.

I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.

The measure of a society is found in how they treat their weakest and most helpless citizens.

I have two passions in my life. One is to raise the awareness of the internment of Japanese-American citizens. My other passion is the theater.