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.

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.

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.

All I can be is me- whoever that is.

Outside sleep's open window, between the drops of rain, history is writing a recipe book for every earthly pain.

Remember how I found you there alone in your electric chair, I told you dirty jokes until you smiled.

Our life is our own creation.

A great many political speeches are literary parricides; they kill their fathers.

Go with the wind, you know, like a sailboat. I think that's really important when it comes to peace… inner peace especially. You can't help anyone else if you don't have it together for yourself.

You invest yourself in what you believe can succeed.

Citizenship should be based on those who have a close and real relationship with this country and its inhabitants.

I've never wanted to play bank managers and real people particularly.

Through primrose tufts, in that sweet bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes.