“The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.”

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

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.

There is no escape – man drags man down, or man lifts man up.

Never let your work drive you. Master it and keep it in complete control.

An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.

You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.

Success always leaves footprints.

Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.

Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker… there is no escape… people drag others or lift others up.

You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.

Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.

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.

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’.

In proportion as one renders service he becomes great.

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.

No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.

Before embarking on important undertakings sit quietly calm your senses and thoughts and meditate deeply. You will then be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.

Every important choice we make is being guided by one of two places: either it is an act of faith or it is an act of fear. Faith opens the door to a new future.

It is not society which is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse.

What are the things that you can’t see that are important? I would say justice, truth, humility, service, compassion, love…They’re the guiding lights of a life.

Act on your inner guidance, and give up your need for ‘proof’ that your inner guidance is authentic. The more you ask for proof, the less likely you are to receive any.

Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.

There may be things that are completely unknowable to us, so we must be careful not to treat the limits of our knowledge as sure guides to the limit of what there is.

God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her through the night with a light from above.