We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.

Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.

You are young, gifted, and Black. We must begin to tell our young, There's a world waiting for you, Yours is the quest that's just begun.

Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.

The colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.

My appearance was always good and my ability to play on the piano, especially ragtime, which was then at the height of its vogue, made me a welcome guest.

Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.

This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.

Young man, young man, your arm's too short to box with God.

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.

You have to be a two people

I don't know any other way to lead but by example.

There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.

A party should be founded not merely on numbers, but on moral principles, without which it can neither accomplish useful work nor inspire confidence.

In the city a funeral is just an interruption of traffic; in the country it is a form of popular entertainment.

Self-expression is a hard and selfish thing. It eats everything, even the self. At the end you find you haven't even got a self to express.

Poetry has been to me something more than amusement, it has been a cheering companion when I had no other to fly to, a delightful solace.

The thing that I did not like about being signed to a label was I unable to have control over what I wanted to do.

A warrior of the Light does not rely on strength alone; he makes use of his opponent's energy, too.

I don't believe that there is fair enough understanding of either our status as women or the total context of our lives, which is very rich and multi-faceted.