The older I grow, the more I am convinced that there is no education which one can get from books and costly apparatus that is equal to that which can be gotten from contact with great men and women.
Living is the art of loving. Loving is the art of caring. Caring is the art of sharing. Sharing is the art of living. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
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.
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.
Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
Think about it: we went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery pieces of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery with chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands...
Let our opportunities overshadow our grievances.
You must understand the troubles of that man farthest down before you can help him.
Holding a grudge does not hurt the person against whom the grudge is held, it hurts the one who holds it.
I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.
Ignorance is more costly to any State than education.
Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.
My whole life has largely been one of surprises.
Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood.
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say ‘Cast down your bucket where you are.’
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.
Success waits patiently for anyone who has the determination and strength to seize it.
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...
Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.
We shall prosper as we learn to do the common things of life in an uncommon way. Let down your buckets where you are.