No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.
I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.
I think I have learned, in some degree at least, to disregard the old maxim “”Do not get others to do what you can do yourself.“” My motto on the other hand is; “”Do not do that which others can do as well.
No one can degrade us except ourselves.
The man who has learned to do something better than anyone else, has learned to do a common thing in an uncommon manner, is the man who has a power and influence that no adverse circumstances can take from him.
A life is not worth much of which it cannot be said, when it comes to its close, that it was helpful to humanity.
At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.
The wisest among my race understand that agitations of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.
In all things social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.
Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.
No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.
Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.
In proportion as one renders service he becomes great.
If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.
It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to rebel, more courage not to strike back than to retaliate, more courage to be silent than to speak.
Success always leaves footprints.
We all should rise, above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness, and selfishness.
No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.
Great men cultivate love and only little men cherish a spirit of hatred; assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.