Our community belongs to us and whether it is mean or majestic, whether arrayed in glory or covered in shame, we cannot but share its character and destiny.

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.

Love is something you must accept in order to have, Naomi.

Forgiveness and faith are like writing a story, they take time, effort, revisions.

I ached with loss that I’d never allowed myself to feel. As if I was leaving something important behind. And that something was me.

In particular, there was a butler in a blue coat and bright buttons, who gave quite a winey flavour to the table beer; he poured it out so superbly.

If they didn't take you seriously, they would never see you coming.

The critic is a man who prefers the indolence of opinion to the trials of action.

The Million Man March, in one day, helped to defeat all of the evil propaganda spread about Black men throughout the world.

I'm sure that it's not good not to be around people.

As a filmmaker I cannot make anything beautiful. I'm Platonic in that sense.

Deep inside us we're not that different at all.