A war undertaken and brazenly carried on for the perpetual enslavement of colored men, calls logically and loudly for colored men to help suppress it.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

You are not judged by the height you have risen, but from the depth you have climbed.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution

Education means emancipation. It means light and liberty. It means the uplifting of the soul of man into the glorious light of truth, the light by which men can only be made free.

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.

Without a struggle, there can be no progress.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

Would it hurt to die?

Half finished work generally proves to be labor lost.

I just write mechanical things.

O Lord, correct me, but with judgment: not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.

I wish I can enjoy no food but food for thought.

If you aim for only wealth, beauty, fame, & power, you aim too low. Humility, gentleness, gratitude, & service is aiming high.

LOA is simply figuring out for yourself what will generate the positive feelings of having it NOW.

This country provides opportunities. If you don't take advantage of them, it's your own fault.

I would rather obey a fine lion, much stronger than myself, than two hundred rats of my own species.

When we put aside partisanship, embrace the best ideas regardless of where they come from and work for principled compromise, we can move America not left or right, but forward.