“I want nothing to do with politicians. Their hearts wither away, and die out of their bodies. Their consciences are turned to india-rubber, or to some substance as black as that, and which will stretch as much.”

Death should take me while I am in the mood.

Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.

Wherever there is a heart and an intellect, the diseases of the physical frame are tinged with the peculiarities of these.

If the truth were to be known, everyone would be wearing a scarlet letter of one form or another.

The book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages.

Articulate words are a harsh clamor and dissonance. When man arrives at his highest perfection, he will again be dumb.

A man’s bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.

Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, this it overflows upon the outward world.

The calmer thought is not always the right thought, just as the distant view is not always the truest view.

We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.

A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.

Moonlight is sculpture.

I find nothing so singular to life as that everything appears to lose its substance the instant one actually grapples with it.

There is great incongruity in this idea of monuments, since those to whom they are usually dedicated need no such recognition to embalm their memory; and any man who does, is not worthy of one.

A pure hand needs no glove to cover it.

Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature.

Having grown up in a segregated environment in the south I know what it’s like to be stepped on, I know what it’s like also to see some black hero do well in the face of adversity.

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies.

There is a terrific apprehension among some people that blacks will take over the sport… It will create problems because their behavior, speech and dress is just a completely different culture.

Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions.

Don’t judge me. You wanna judge me, put on a black gown and get a gavel. Get in line with the rest of them that’s about to judge me. I got court dates every other month. It’s me against the world – that’s how I feel.

Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.

If ever America undergoes great revolutions, they will be brought about by the presence of the black race on the soil of the United States – that is to say, they will owe their origin not to the equality but to the inequality of conditions.

My mom wanted to make sure I was prepared to grow up with Black skin in America.