There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home.

As an actor you just want to work and then you just want to be on a show or have a job that you love and you hope that job will last - those things have happened. To have that platform to then talk about something that is very personal to me like marriage equality it feels like a gift. I try and really respect that voice and not abuse it.

Well my personal mission statement is that we want marriage equality in all 50 states. We want it not to be a state-by-state issue. We don't want it to be something the majority is voting on. I don't think the civil rights of any minority should be in the hands of any majority.

America 5 years after this brutal attack is testament that a Nation conceived in liberty and equality will endure. It is a triumph of millions of Americans but it is also the triumph of an idea larger than any one person larger than any one nation.

Civilization is built on a number of ultimate principles... respect for human life the punishment of crimes against property and persons the equality of all good citizens before the law... or in a word justice.

To realize that new world we must prefer the values of freedom and equality above all other values - above personal wealth technical power and nationalism.

Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person who is then equal.

Rosa Parks was the queen mother of a movement whose single act of heroism sparked the movement for freedom justice and equality. Her greatest contribution is that she told us a regular person can make a difference.

Women's rights is not only an abstraction a cause it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.

In order to get beyond racism we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally we must treat them differently.

But reducing harmful emissions abating our dependence on foreign oil and developing alternative renewable energy sources have benefits that go beyond environmental health they improve personal health enhance national security and encourage our nation's economic viability.

People blame their environment. There is only one person to blame - and only one - themselves.

I was taught by my father. He was head of the primary school so I went to his school until I was 11 - I was the youngest of four daughters and we had all been taught by him. But I didn't really enjoy my secondary education that much probably because I am a very physical person and don't enjoy sitting at a desk all day.

But I didn't really enjoy my secondary education that much probably because I am a very physical person and don't enjoy sitting at a desk all day. I just dragged myself through GCSE and A Levels so it suited me very much to go on to drama school which was very active.

All around as a person on right decisions on holding your money on doing your trade a good education is a must. I don't think I would've done as good without an education.

Education has fundamentally changed my life. It's perhaps the mission of my life. I'm wed to it in a very powerful and personal way. And I chose the pathway that I believe could make me the most significant on changing the outcomes that we see now in North Carolina.

Think about it: Every educated person is not rich but almost every education person has a job and a way out of poverty. So education is a fundamental solution to poverty.

A person like myself born and raised in the inner city of Atlanta Georgia to lower-middle-class parents. But I had the opportunity to get an education to go and earn a commission in the United States Army to serve for 22 years to lead men and women in combat.

Abraham Lincoln comes from nothing has no education no money lives in the middle of nowhere on the frontier. And despite the fact that he suffers one tragedy and one setback after another through sheer force of will he becomes something extraordinary: not only the president but the person who almost single-handedly united the country.

There's a need for accepting responsibility - for a person's life and making choices that are not just ones for immediate short-term comfort. You need to make an investment and the investment is in health and education.

It makes little difference how many university courses or degrees a person may own. If he cannot use words to move an idea from one point to another his education is incomplete.

The American culture promotes personal responsibility the dignity of work the value of education the merit of service devotion to a purpose greater than self and at the foundation the pre-eminence of family.

Purity of personal life is the one indispensable condition for building up a sound education.

Every educated person is a future enemy.