“We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.”

The longer I live and the more I study the question, the more I am convinced that it is not so much the problem of what you will do with Negro, as what the Negro will do with you and your ‘civilization’.

Even where he has the least education and the least encouragement, is incomparably better than the condition and opportunities of the agricultural population in Sicily.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.

Character is power.

From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.

I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

Many strikes and similar disturbances might be avoided if the employers would cultivate the habit of getting nearer to their employees, of consulting and advising with them, and letting them feel that the interests of the two are the same.

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.

No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward.

My whole life has largely been one of surprises.

Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.

I shall never permit myself to stoop so low as to hate any man.

We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you’ve over come

We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands.

Talent you have naturally. Skill is only developed by hours and hours and hours of beating on your craft.

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.

I’ve never really had much of an imagination. But still I would try to picture the exact moment when the beating of my heart would no longer be going on inside my head.

I’ll beat him so bad he’ll need a shoehorn to put his hat on.

If you even dream of beating me you’d better wake up and apologize.

The game has its ups and downs, but you can never lose focus of your individual goals and you can’t let yourself be beat because of lack of effort.