The future of our fragile, beautiful planet home is in our hands. As God's family, we are stewards of God's creation. We can be wantonly irresponsible, or we can be caring and compassionate. God says, "I have set before you life and death... Choose life."

And God says to all of us, you are no chicken; you are an eagle. Fly, eagle, fly. And God wants us to shake ourselves, spread our pinions, and then lift off and soar and rise, and rise toward the confident and the good and the beautiful. Rise towards the compassionate and the gentle and the caring. Rise to become what God intends us to be - eagles, not chickens.

Religious people should be very active if they believe that the world belongs to God, and politics is a very important part of the world, then they must participate in political affairs because they are alive. And if they don't act neither as the leaven or the salt or the light, then things can go horribly badly wrong.

We don't want apartheid liberalized. We want it dismantled. You can't improve something that is intrinsically evil.

Every situation of justice is an occasion where someone is being humiliated and they want to restore their dignity.

You stand out in the crowd only because you have these many, many carrying you on their shoulders.

I'm so, so thrilled that [Pope Francis] is there at this crucial moment in the history of our world.