“My whole life has largely been one of surprises.”

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.

It means a great deal, I think, to start off on a foundation which one has made for oneself.

The circumstances that surround a man’s life are not important. How that man responds to those circumstances IS IMPORTANT. His response is the ultimate determining factor between success and failure.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

We don’t just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

There is no escape – man drags man down, or man lifts man up.

Never let your work drive you. Master it and keep it in complete control.

An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.

You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.

Success always leaves footprints.

Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.

Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker… there is no escape… people drag others or lift others up.

You go to school, you study about the Germans and the French, but not about your own race. I hope the time will come when you study black history too.

Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.

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.

It never dawned on me that I had the option of becoming a comedian. I come from a little dirt street town in northwest Texas, and they really don’t talk about the arts there much on career day.

The Republican Party has become overwhelmingly so extreme that it’s hardly a traditional political party anymore.

In marriage, a man becomes slack and selfish, and undergoes a fatty degeneration of his moral being.

To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.

To become what we are capable of becoming is the only end in life.

If you become famous and don’t have a live show to back it up, they’re not going to pay you any money.

To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.

There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path. Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.