“He who starts behind in the great race of life must forever remain behind or run faster than the man in front.”

The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream…It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.

The tragedy of life is not found in failure but complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing too little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. It’s not failure but aiming too low, that is life’s greatest tragedy.

In this perilous world, if a black boy wanted to live a halfway normal life and die a natural death he had to learn early the art of how to get along with white folks.

Man is what his dreams are.

You have the ability, now apply yourself.

Every man and woman is born into the world to do something unique and something distinctive and if he or she does not do it, it will never be done.

Whatever you do,strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead and no man yet to be born could do it any better.

It is not your environment, it is you- the quality of your mind, the integrity of your soul and the determination of your will that will decide your future and shape your life.

It isn’t more light we need, it isn’t more truth, and it isn’t more scientific data. It is more Christ, more courage, more spiritual insight to act on the light we have.

A child must learn early to believe that she is somebody worthwhile, and that she can do many praiseworthy things.

It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture.

It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.

Many well-meaning intelligent people have argued since the May 17, 1954, decision of the United States Supreme Court outlawing segregation in the public schools that communication between the races has broken down.

The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach

We, today, stand on the shoulders of our predecessors who have gone before us. We, as their successors, must catch the torch of freedom and liberty passed on to us by our ancestors. We cannot lose in this battle.

[H]owever hard the road, however difficult today, tomorrow things will be better. Tomorrow may not be better, but we must believe that it will be.

It is not depravity that afflicts the human race so much as a general lack of intelligence.

I believe in racial memory too. I’m sure I’ve got ancient African blood in me that has something to do with what I am.

The [Vietnam War Memorial] Wall became a magnet for citizens of every generation, class, race, and relationship to the war perhaps because it is the only great public monument that allows the anesthetized holes in the heart to fill with a truly national grief.

That primary quality of being which knows itself, its passions, only against an otherness that has to be dehumanized. I grew up in white silence that was utterly obsessional. Race was the theme whatever the topic.

Those who speak largely of the human condition are usually those most exempt from its oppressions – whether of sex, race, or servitude.

The 1990s were also when a bunch of the soft-shoe language for race, gender, and class became paramount.

There has always been a tendency – race notwithstanding.

To win a race, the swiftness of a dart Availeth not without a timely start.