If the white man gives you anything - just remember when he gets ready he will take it right back. We have to take for ourselves.

You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.

Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, I'll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.

When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.

Never to forget where we came from and always praise the bridges that carried us over.

Nobody's free until everybody's free.

Black people know what white people mean when they say “law and order”.

I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I feel sorry for anybody that could let hate wrap them up. Ain't no such thing as I can hate anybody and hope to see God's face.

With the people, for the people, by the people. I crack up when I hear it; I say, with the handful, for the handful, by the handful, cause that's what really happens.

Righteousness exalts a nation. Hate just makes people miserable.

I come from an interracial family: My father is from Nigeria, and so he is African-American, and my mother is American and white, so I rarely see skin color. It's never an issue for me.

Ships are safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for. So set sail on the stormy sea of love. You're going to get soaked at times, but at least you'll know you're alive.

Most human behavior is nothing other than the avoidance of pain and the pursuit of pleasure.

After you play a part, you think of it as your own.

my thoughts are like quick little fish that swim out of my grasp.

A copying artist should get permission or pay the original artist a fee.

Ah, love, - you are my unutterable blessing.....I am in full sunshine now.

How blessed I am that I can walk beside you, lean upon you, and live within the warmth of your love...

In a murderous time/the heart breaks and breaks/and lives by breaking.

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn't pretty it won't do her much good.