“You can’t hold a man down without staying down with him.”

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.

Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

Remember that everyone’s life is measured by the power that individual has to make the world better-this is all life is.

We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.

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

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.

Character is power.

Each one should remember there is a chance for him.

I think I have learned that the best way to lift one’s self up is to help someone else.

A pretty face may be enough to catch a man, but it takes character and good nature to hold him.

Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.

No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no other man has been so devoutly loved.

If we keep holding on to God, there is nothing to fear.

I make it my rule, to lay hold of light and embrace it, wherever I see it, though held forth by a child or an enemy.

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider… abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire.

I’ll craft a haven that that cradles every joy and sorrow, but doesn’t hold them to keep.

Hold me here, where I feel less like a stranger to my own laughter. Where it’s easier to believe things happen for a reason or maybe, at least, out of a thousand winding roads my life might take, I will still find one that fits me.