You have to have the capacity and the ability to take what people did, and how they did it, and forgive them and move on.

People should organize people to just turn up and participate in the democratic process. Knock on doors. They may not be old enough to register to vote, but they can urge their teachers, their parents, their grandparents, their mothers, their fathers, and others to get out and vote.

We're one people, and we all live in the same house. Not the American house, but the world house.

We must bring the issue of mental illness out into the sunlight, out of the shadow, out of the closet, deal with it, treat people, have centers where people can get the necessary help.

My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.

When you make mistakes, when you're wrong, you should admit you're wrong and ask people to forgive you.

What I try to tell young people is that if you come together with a mission, and its grounded with love and a sense of community, you can make the impossible possible.

Not one of us can rest, be happy, be at home, be at peace with ourselves, until we end hatred and division.

We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you.

Political parties are on the hunt to search and destroy each other, as though we were involved in some kind of enemy combat, rather than the work of statesmanship.

I say from time to time that the vote is precious. It's almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool or instrument that we have in a democratic society. And we must use it.

War that is waged for power or dominion over other human beings obscures the inevitable truth that we are all members of one family, and no matter who has conquered whom, who now resents whom, who holds bitterness against whom, the only way we can have true peace is to set aside our injuries and our dedication to revenge and accept our equal divinity.

We all remember that Donald Trump was one of the leaders of the so-called birther movement trying to delegitimize the presidency of our first African-American president Barack Obama, which is an outrage.

Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Do not become bitter or hostile. Be hopeful, be optimistic.

The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society.

I would say the country is a different country. It is a better country. The signs I saw when I was growing up are gone and they will not return. In many ways the walls of segregation have been torn down.

We have come a long way in America because of Martin Luther King, Jr. He led a disciplined, nonviolent revolution under the rule of law, a revolution of values, a revolution of ideas. We've come a long way, but we still have a distance to go before all of our citizens embrace the idea of a truly interracial democracy, what I like to call the Beloved Community, a nation at peace with itself.

We never gave up. We didn't get lost in a sea of despair. We kept the faith. We kept pushing and pulling. We kept marching. And we made some progress.

We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation.

If not us, then who?
If not now, then when?