In going abroad we change the climate not our dispositions.

Carpe diem! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.

Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever.

Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, and riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character.

Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.

It is impossible to enslave, mentally or socially, a bible-reading people. The principles of the bible are the groundwork of human freedom.

The great virtue of parents is a great dowry.

It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things money can't buy.

Carpe diem. (Seize the day.)

When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed.

Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.

It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

The idea of perfection always gives one a chance to talk without knowing facts.

When I was a kid growing up in New York, I was pretty unaware of racism. I think when we're young - before we lose our innocence - we're sort of unaware of the more flawed qualities of each other.

If it is true that the violin is the most perfect of musical instruments, then Greek is the violin of human thought.

I'm pretty disciplined to keep the momentum of a story going by writing everyday, even if it's only a couple paragraphs or a page or two.

At 17, all I wanted was to be a famous junky. Like all my heroes.

If you do good because you expect to be rewarded, it is greed.

You can't say that religion or irreligion will give us a particular answer to the nuclear dilemma.

I don't consider myself just a black man. I consider myself a brotha. I love my people.

We are African in origin and American in birth.