“Would America have been America without her Negro people?”

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

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, — the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.

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

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.

For education among all kinds of men always has had, and always will have, an element of danger and revolution, of dissatisfaction and discontent.

I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down… Education must not simply teach work – it must teach life.

I have loved my work, I have loved people and my play, but always I have been uplifted by the thought that what I have done well will live long and justify my life, that what I have done ill or never finished can now be handed on to others for endless days to be finished, perhaps better than I could have done.

The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?

A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.

Lord, make us mindful of the little things that grow and blossom in these days to make the world beautiful for us.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The favorite device of the devil, ancient and modern, is to force a human being into a more or less artificial class, accuse the class of unnamed and unnameable sin, and then damn any individual in the alleged class, however innocent he may be.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

The time must come when, great and pressing as change and betterment may be, they do not involve killing and hurting people.

American women were frustrated in just the role of housewife – but they also managed to enlarge it. And they weren’t just housewives, they were community leaders.

I think the most pressing issue in our community is probably a generational divide.

They whose minds are least sensitive to calamity, and whose hands are most quick to meet it, are the greatest men and the greatest communities.

We know that there can never be any solid friendship between individuals, or union between communities that is worth the name, unless the parties be persuaded of each others honesty

Cinema has no boundaries, we all belong to the same artistic community.

The advertisements in a newspaper are more full knowledge in respect to what is going on in a state or community than the editorial columns are.

I grew up in an artists community in New York, in a building that was government-subsidised for artists. No one made any money, but they made art for the sake of art.

We have to launch a national campaign against homophobia in the black community.