My cause was and is that of the black man; not because he is black, but because he is a man.

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Diversity of opinion within the framework of loyalty to our free society is not only basic to a university but to the entire nation.

I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.

Wherever there is injustice, war, discrimination against women, gays and the disadvantaged, I did my best to show up and exert moral persuasion.

Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people?

Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Our task must be to free ourselves…by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.

There is but one thing of real value—to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men.

Perfect wisdom has four parts; Wisdom, the principle of doing things right. Justice, the principle of doing things equally in public and private. Fortitude, the principle of not fleeing danger, but meeting it. Temperance, the principle of subduing desires and living moderately.

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If all people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth.

Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.

The first requisite of civilization is that of justice.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

If everyone were clothed with integrity, if every heart were just, frank, kindly, the other virtues would be well-nigh unless, since their chief purpose is to make us bear with patience the injustice of our fellows.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither person nor property will be safe.

Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles in the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.

Loyalty to country always. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.

Almost every significant breakthrough is the result of a courageous break with traditional ways of thinking.

The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what they are going to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

All that was great in the past was ridiculed, condemned, combated, suppressed — only to emerge all the more powerfully, all the more triumphantly from the struggle.

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.