“Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work.”

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.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

In the long run, the world is going to have the best, and any difference in race, religion, or previous history will not keep the world from what it wants.

The time will come when the Negro in the South will be accorded all the political rights which his ability, character, and material possessions entitle him to.

If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.

The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.

The longer I live and the more experience I have of the world, the more I am convinced that, after all, the one thing that is most worth living for-and dying for, if need be-is the opportunity of making someone else more happy.

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.

I believe that any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high-water mark of pure and useful living.

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

It is not necessary for me always to premise, that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions out of the question.

Women belong in all places where decisions are being made. It shouldn’t be that women are the exception.

It is better to be an exception than to have expectations.

In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.

Man, wonderful man, must collapse, into nature’s cauldron, he is no deity, he is no exception.

For 244 years our democracy has worked and this is no exception.

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror.

The world needs saints, and all of us, without exception, are called to holiness. We are not afraid!