I do not see how a people that can find in its conscience any excuse whatever for slowly burning to death a human being, or for tolerating such an act, can be entrusted with the salvation of a race.

Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.

Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.

The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

Failure is only an experience. We learn from trials and errors.

Man's happiness springs mainly from moderate troubles which afford the mind a healthful stimulus and are followed by a reaction which produces a cheerful flow of spirits.

Oh, it is easy for the one who stands outside the prison-wall of pain to exhort and teach the one who suffers.

I’m not really all that familiar with comic book culture.

You could be happy, the minute you try. Why won't you try? Oh won't you try?

I like giving people something they don't want to miss the next time. It's a show with little twists and turns and curves. It has me being silly and stupid and compassionate and completely deep.

More lives are influenced by emulation than exhortation.

[Emacs] is written in Lisp, which is the only computer language that is beautiful.

The one thing I've always maintained is that I'm an American Indian. I'm not politically correct.

We are what we seem to be.