We will never have true civilization until we have learned to recognize the rights of others.

I am free of all prejudices. I hate every one equally.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.

Equality, rightly understood as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.

Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it into a fact.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests you cannot subvert your neighbor's rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own.