I think hopelessness is the enemy of justice.

You ultimately judge the civility of a society not by how it treats the rich, the powerful, the protected and the highly esteemed, but by how it treats the poor, the disfavored and the disadvantaged.

We have a system of justice in [the US] that treats you much better if you're rich and guilty than if you're poor and innocent. Wealth, not culpability, shapes outcomes.

You don’t change the world with the ideas in your mind, but with the conviction in your heart.

Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet.

The opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.

The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.

Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.

We live in a country that talks about being the home of the brave and the land of the free, and we have the highest incarceration rate in the world.

I don't think there's been a time in American history with more innocent people in prison.

Always do the right thing even when the right thing is the hard thing

No one escapes from life alive.

But there was, she knew, something else. Happiness, she supposed. Whatever that might be. What, exactly, she wondered, was happiness. Very positively she wanted it.

Behold yon rough and flinty roadWhere youth, now youth no more, Gropes whining, seeking crumbs of loavesHe cast away of yore.

Never permit anyone to interfere with your bond with happiness.

We should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit.

It's amazing how you don't realize just how alone and scared you were until you have someone by your side to support you.

Time is a great conference planning our end, and youth is only the past putting a leg forward.

I began asking, 'How can we know Christianity is true?' Sadly, none of the adults in my life offered an answer. Eventually I decided Christianity must not have any answers, and I became an agnostic.

The human is indissolubly linked with imitation: a human being only becomes human at all by imitating other human beings.

People should decide what success means for them, and not be distracted by accepting others' definitions of success.