“Some know the value of education by having it. I knew its value by not having it.”

What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

I prayed for freedom for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.

The silver trump of freedom roused in my soul eternal wakefulness.

To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason.

Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work.

The mind does not take its complexion from the skin.

It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

Educate your sons and daughters, send them to school, and show them that beside the cartridge box, the ballot box, and the jury box, you also have the knowledge box.

A woman should have every honorable motive to exertion which is enjoyed by man, to the full extent of her capacities and endowments.

Oppression makes a wise man mad.

What is possible for me is possible for you.

A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.

I had as well be killed running as die standing.

The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it’s privileges by the law of the land.

Not living for food, but living for the sake of an ideal, that is the goal of education.

I went to school like any other regular student till Class VIII, and my favourite subject was math. From Class IX, things got a little difficult to manage. I was inclined towards studies, but then I also had to give time to badminton.

Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.

Marble flooring is to a Punjabi what a foreign degree is to a Tamilian.

The beauty of a cuckoo is in its notes, that of a woman in her unalloyed devotion to her husband, that of an ugly person in his scholarship, and that of an ascetic in his forgiveness.

Every person that you meet knows something you don’t; learn from them.

They teach anything in universities today. You can major in mud pies.

The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.