Unfortunately there was one thing that the white South feared more than Negro dishonesty, ignorance, and incompetency, and that was Negro honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.

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.

To be infinite, lose yourself in infinite love.

Maupassant is a man of mitigating circumstances, the lawyer who can bring the jurors around by demonstrating that they too could have committed such a crime. We are all murderers.

Fear has no brains; it is an idiot.

The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.

Sometimes you may kill tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands with very primitive armaments.

I love creativity, with no fear of what people think.

God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise. With thee conversing I forget all time.

That laughter costs too much which is purchased by the sacrifice of decency.

The human body has no more need for cows' milk than it does for dogs' milk, horses' milk, or giraffes' milk.