It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

My people had used music to soothe slavery's torment or to propitiate God, or to describe the sweetness of love and the distress of lovelessness, but I knew no race could sing and dance its way to freedom.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but a woman called by a devaluing name will only be weakened by the misnomer.

You can never be great at anything unless you love it.