Art in its highest form is art that serves and instructs society and human development.

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.

In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children.

I am who I am despite what America has put before me. I am who I am despite the obstacles that we have all faced based upon race and based upon social and spiritual humiliation.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.

These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country.

We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended.

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?

Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet. I'm always in Africa... And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere.

Negative stimulus may paralyze positive life.

From the gut comes the strut, and where hunger reigns, strength abstains.

In terms of what we share from our lives, I tend to share everything. My instinct would be to share everything.

If we have an honest discussion on whether the war on poverty should be fought with welfare or with economic growth in the private sector, Democrats will lose black votes.

God is diverse and inclusive, not limited and exclusive. You're thinking of a Country Club.

The future has an ancient heart.

I love you for all that you are, all that you have been, all that you're yet to be.

Life has no remote get up and change it yourself.

All of my books began as sermons, so really the heart of the message is still the same.

[Lev] Tolstoy is not a boy-writer. He's a grown-up. And [Fedor] Doestoeivski is not a boy-writer.