“I knew someone had to take the first step and I made up my mind not to move.”

One person can change the world.

Each person must live their life as a model for others.

When I see the leadership roles black women are taking today I am very encouraged.

My only concern was to get home after a hard day’s work.

Many whites, even white Southerners told me that even though it may have seemed like the blacks were being freed (by my actions) they felt more free and at ease themselves. They thought that my action didn’t just free blacks but them, too.

There is just so much hurt, disappointment, and oppression one can take. The line between reason and madness grows thinner.

I will always work for human rights for all people.

Stand for something or you will fall for anything. Today’s mighty oak is yesterday’s nut that held its ground.

There is no future without education.

When people made up their minds that they wanted to be free and took action, then there was a change.

I paid the same fare as others, and I felt violated. I was not going back.

Have you ever been hurt and the place tries to heal a bit, and you just pull the scar off of it over and over again.

I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.

Our mistreatment was just not right, and I was tired of it.

If I can sit down for freedom, you can stand up for children.

I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

I began to understand that his version of hope reached far beyond mine: It was one thing to get yourself out of a stuck place, I realized. It was another thing entirely to try and get the place itself unstuck.

Men, though they must die, are not born in order to die but in order to begin.

Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement.

The beginning is always today.

As we work along our various ways, there takes shape within us, in some sort, an ideal – something we are to become – some work to be done. This, I think, is denied to very few, and we begin really to live only when the thrill of this ideality moves us in what we will to accomplish.

Alas, it is when we are beginning to leave this mortal body that it most offends us!

Because the development of inner calm & energy happens completely within & isn’t dependent on another person or a particular situation, we begin to feel a resourcefulness and independence that is quite beautiful—and a huge relief.

Life begins on the other side of despair.