“A life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful to humanity.”

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

The highest test of the civilization of any race is in its willingness to extend a helping hand to the less fortunate.

Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.

Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.

Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.

If you truly want to measure the success of a man, you do not measure it by a position he has achieved, but by the obstacles he has overcome.

My whole life has largely been one of surprises.

We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way. Let down your buckets where you are.

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

The thing to do when one feels sure that he has said or done the right thing and is condemned, is to stand still and keep quiet. If he is right, time will show it.

It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges.

Leaders have devoted themselves to politics, little knowing, it seems that political independence disappears without economic independence that economic independence is the foundation of political independence.

Ignorance is more costly to any State than education.

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.

My mission in heaven will be to draw souls, helping them to go out of themselves to cling to God, with a spontaneous, love-filled action, and to keep them in that great interior silence which enables God to make his mark on them, to transform them into himself.

It’s not easy that everything you do, everybody has to come in and critique it and give their opinion. Sometimes it does help me and sometimes it hurts me as a person. That’s life. I have feelings.

I can turn heartbreak into songs that help other people.

All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.

Christians are like manure: spread them out and they help everything grow better, but keep them in one big pile and they stink horribly.

Shy Carter helped me write ‘One Call Away.’ He is a brand new artist. I really want to help jumpstart his career because I think he’s super-talented.

I used to ask God to help me. Then I asked if I might help Him to do His work through me.

The uplift of a fearless heart will help us over barriers. No one ever overcomes difficulties by going at them in a hesitant, doubtful way.