The most ordinary Negro is a distinct gentleman, but it takes extraordinary training and opportunity to make the average white man anything but a hog.

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.

Dementia was like a truth serum.

God invented concubinage, satan marriage.

Ideas, in a free society, are not a crime- and neither can they serve as the justification of a crime.

I went through the fields, and sat for an hour afraid to pass a cow. The cow looked at me, and I looked at the cow, and whenever I stirred the cow gave over eating.

My love for those I love -- not many -- not very many, but don't I love them so?

Dreams are faithful interpreters of our inclinations; but there is art required to sort and understand them.

Just put on the lens and go.

Always shun whatever may make you angry.

Fame! it is the flower of a day, that dies when the next sun rises.

I want to make sure that I represent a variety of backgrounds and that represents the reality out here in the world.