So often do you see collegians enter life with high resolve and lofty purpose and then watch them shrink and shrink to sordid, selfish, shrewd plodders, full of distrust and sneers.

Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

Strive for that greatness of spirit that measures life not by its disappointments but by its possibilities.

There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise

Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.

We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong - this is the ancient, unerring way to liberty and we must follow it.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong.

Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.

Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great at all, you must begin where you are and with what you are, in Philadelphia, now.

One thing is for sure, we can’t be powerful and pitiful at the same time.

It was one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and deceptive, when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.

A judgement results from some kind of consideration of the evidences available and is always better than an assumption!

Prayer is exhaling the spirit of man and inhaling the spirit of God.

I dont think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry.

Among the heaps of brick and plaster lies/ a girder, still itself among the rubbish

I don't want you to misunderstand me. You might get up and state what you believe to be Seventh-day Adventism, and I might not agree with everything you said.

Griffin Bell later apologized to me for that decision.

I'm going to try and focus on doing more theater things. I come from that background. I honestly feel so comfortable being on stage, it's really weird. It's one of those things I love to do.