“It is only the belief and the confidence we have in a God why man is able to understand his own social institutions, and move and live like a rational human being.”

Intelligence rules the world, ignorance carries the burden.

Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm.

The whole world is run on bluff. No race, no nation, no man has any divine right to take advantage of others. Why allow the other fellow to bluff you?

Take advantage of every opportunity; where there is none, make it for yourself, and let history record that as we toiled laboriously and courageously, we worked to live gloriously.

At no time within the last five hundred years can one point to a single instance of the Negro as a race of haters.

You must not mistake lip service and noise for bravery and service.

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.

The history of a movement, the history of a nation, the history of a race is the guide-post of that movement’s destiny, that nation’s destiny, that race’s destiny.

I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there.

Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God’s grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America.

A man’s bread and butter is only insured when he works for it.

If we as a people realized the greatness from which we came we would be less likely to disrespect ourselves.

A reading man and woman is a ready man and woman, but a writing man and woman are exact.

When all else fails to organize the people, conditions will.

What you do today that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.

Every man has a right to his own opinion. Every race has a right to its own action; therefore let no man persuade you against your will, let no other race influence you against your own.

Dad, as a good American, believed his newspapers.

I believe women still face a glass ceiling that must be shattered.

I was so ugly that my parents sent my picture to ‘ripley’s believe it or not’ – they sent it back and said, “we don’t believe it.”

Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.

Be not attached to who you think you are. So you can believe all that you are meant to be.

You believe in magic and so do I, because I believe in you.

Those who fight the hardest for change are the ones who most believe its possible.

Now the Church is not wood and stone, but the company of believing people; one must hold to them, and see how they believe, live and teach.