“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.”

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.

The thing worse than rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion.

A man’s character always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things about him.

A man’s rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.

A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.

Truth is proper and beautiful in all times and in all places.

The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

One and God make a majority.

The ballot is the only safety.

A slave is someone who sits down, and waits for someone to free them.

The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle.

I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of being the best master I ever had, till I became my own master.

A man, at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing.

I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity.

The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

Crime can be a unifying argument – not an argument that people use as a code for us vs. them.

You must force yourself to consider opposing arguments. Especially when they challenge your best loved ideas.

I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.

Equals argue – win or lose. Superiors just say it and win.

Let your words be of velvet and your arguments of the steel.

Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.

AIDS is an absolutely tragic disease. The argument about AIDS’ being some kind of divine retribution is crap.

When we argue for our limitations, we get to keep them.