Yes, I heard my people singing!-in the glow of parlor coal-stove and on summer porches sweet with lilac air, from choir loft and Sunday morning pews-and my soul was filled with their harmonies.

My father was a slave and my people died to build this country and I am going to stay here and have a part of it just like you.

The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic but to end the injustice.

The faces and the tactics of the leaders may change every four years, or two, or one, but the people go on forever.

As an artist I come to sing, but as a citizen, I will always speak for peace, and no one can silence me in this.

Artists are the gate keepers of truth. We are civilization’s radical voice.

In Russia I felt for the first time like a full human being. No color prejudice like in Mississippi, no color prejudice like in Washington. It was the first time I felt like a human being.

We ask for nothing that is not ours by right, and herein lies the great moral power of our demand.

Through my singing and acting and speaking, I want to make freedom ring. Maybe I can touch people's hearts better than I can their minds, with the common struggle of the common man.

My future depends mostly upon myself.

Art is not just to show life as it is, but to show life as it should be.

In the midst of the turbulence, we hang onto hope.

The cruelty itself is motivated by something deeper: the wish to know the secret of things and of life.

The only difference between where you are and where you want to be is the number of steps you haven't taken yet.

Sure you do. Everyone wants to play. They’re just afraid of looking stupid. But you know what’s stupid? Not trying. So just…try.

Her life, she realized, had all the charm of a steel trap.

Defeating human trafficking is a great moral calling of our time...

The reason adultery is immoral is that it might lead to marriage.

If there are any cages in this marriage, it is I who have built them. And I who hold the key to their locks.

And if you dont come back from the dorm, I'm the one who has to explain to Micheal how I let you go off and get yourself killed like a Dumbass. First rule in horror movies, Clair-Never split up!

Don't try to go too fast. Learn your job. Don't ever talk until you know what you're talking about... If you want to get along, go along.