We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren?t it doesn?t matter.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it.

A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?

The problem with being a liar is you can never believe anyone else.

After everything, you still want to believe that love prevails, that in the end there will be justice. That is an illusion, and I pity you.

National Review's premise was that conformity was especially egregious among the intellectuals, that herd of independent minds.

When you have no basis for an argument abuse the plaintiff.

So all my friends have kids now... which I think is rude.

Don't let the facts interfere with the truth.

If I'm disrespectful to my opponent, how can I respect myself?

How lawyers make work for one another! You're all priests, worshipping the same god. No wonder you adore one another.

Every strong conviction ends by taking possession of us; it overcomes and absorbs us, and tears us ruthlessly from everything else. Has the Cross so seized upon your life?

In a region with a growing population, if you're doing nothing, you're losing ground.