Our minorities alone are in a position to know what the fathers of our democracy were talking about.

... the constructive power of an image is not measured in terms of its truth, but of the love it inspires.

Serviceis love in action, love "made flesh"; service is the body, the incarnation of love. Love is the impetus, service the act, and creativity the result with many by-products.

To grow is sometimes to hurt, but who would return to smallness?

A man's real and deep feelings are surely those which he acts upon when challenged, not those which, mellow-eyed and soft-voiced, he spouts in easy times.

... in 1950 a very large slice of the white South stood at the crossroads in its attitude toward its colored citizens and [was] psychologically capable of turning either way.

If we love-and-serve an ideal we reach backward in time to its inception and forward to its consummation. To grow is sometimes to hurt; but who would return to smallness?

When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values--an identification which alone makesit possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.

A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.

I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn't love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country.

if youdon't want toend up insomeone else'spoem, then maybeyou shouldstarttreatingpeoplebetterfor achange.- an unapologetic poet.

There are creatures in this world, small things and pretty things, which burn within them a fire for survival.

How many of us will ever sit... bow our heads and pray "Lord show me where I'm wrong"?

I can get on with all different sorts of people, and I never feel homesick, particularly, or I've never felt kind of patriotic towards any one country.

Give a man a fish, feed home for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed for a lifetime.

We really care about photography at Vanity Fair.

There are lines upon my face from a lifetime of smiles

To write that essential book, a great writer does not need to invent it but merely to translate it, since it already exists in each one of us. The duty and task of a writer are those of translator.

Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to good use.

The media ignores what is really going on.