C. Everett Koop Quotes

HIV does not make people dangerous to be with. So you can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it.

AIDS is a horrible disease, and the people who catch it deserve compassion.

People with HIV and AIDS are nothing to be afraid of. They are people just like every single one of us, and each has a story to tell. These people should be helped, embraced, and not dismissed. We need to open our hearts and our minds to them, and we just may learn we're pretty much all the same.

If we are going to teach the world not to hate the other, then we will have to start with children.

I think more tolerance, more people having more access to a chance to be literate, and a chance to stay healthy makes for a more peaceful planet.

Part of what Special Olympics is trying to do is break down stereotypes that still exist for people. There is still a lot of fear.

In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'

I want to be part of the storytelling that educates people and awakens a sense of compassion in other people of the kind of people they don't encounter in their daily lives very frequently.

We must win the common people in every corner. This will be obtained chiefly by means of the schools, and by open, hearty behaviour, show, condescention, popularity, and toleration of their prejudices, which we shall at leisure root out and dispel

You can legislate against discrimination, but you can't legislate compassion, understanding and good will.

When you hear people making hateful comments, stand up to them. Point out what a waste it is to hate, and you could open their eyes.

I've not experienced racism from other players. Not once. You experience ignorance but that's not the same at all, and I'm always happy to discuss things. If that helps people learn about Islam, to learn there's nothing to fear, then great, that's all part of my role.

Once you understand that someone has Tourette and that they can't help their tics, it takes away the distraction. And you can engage your compassion. You feel for them. You embrace them.

Issues to do with disability, mental health and not being neurotypical often affect many genuine teenagers but are rarely reflected in the fiction they read.

I try to support groups that are about educating people about different races, different religions, different cultures and different situations so that we can break down the barriers of prejudice and bigotry.

There's nothing I love more in life than turning around a bigot.

I'm human. But overall, whenever I see anyone being made fun of or given a hard time, I rush to their defense. I want to help them because I know how it feels.

With all the people hating and hurting each other, I don't understand how people could get upset about people of the same sex caring for each other.

We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion.

My campaign confirmed my belief that although there are bigots in America, whose hateful rhetoric seizes the media's attention, the vast majority of people do not harbor such prejudice.

AIDS is a complex situation that's sure to bring out the best and the worst in people.

Everyone should play their role in tearing down the wall of hatred.

I get mail from people all over the world now from people who tell me that they didn't really understand Down syndrome, but because of me they have read about it and studied it and now they know a lot more about it.

You can have all of the laws and protection in place, but how do you get rid of homophobia? This is something that the U.S. is going to have to deal with.

You have discovered so much kindness and good will to those you thought were oppressed, and had no helper, that I am sure you will not despise what I have wrote, if you judge it will be of any service to them.