Every race and every nation should be judged by the best it has been able to produce, not by the worst.
Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty. Let our rejoicing rise high as the listening skies; Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
It is strange how in some things honest people can be dishonest without the slightest compunction.
Young man, young man, your arm’s too short to box with God.
And God stepped out on space, and He looked around and said: I’m lonely – I’ll make me a world.
I’m lonely I’ll make me a world.
In the life of everyone there is a limited number of experiences which are not written upon the memory, but stamped there with a die; and in the long years after, they can be called up in detail, and every emotion that was stirred by them can be lived through anew; these are the tragedies of life.
I do not see how a people that can find in its conscience any excuse whatever for slowly burning to death a human being, or for tolerating such an act, can be entrusted with the salvation of a race.
Nothing great or enduring, especially in music, has ever sprung full-fledged and unprecedented from the brain of any master; the best he gives to the world he gathers from the hearts of the people, and runs it through the alembic of his genius.
Amsterdam was a great surprise to me. I had always thought of Venice as the city of canals; it had never entered my mind that I should find similar conditions in a Dutch town.
It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives it most distinctive characteristics.
I finally made up my mind that I would neither disclaim the black race nor claim the white race; but that I would change my name, raise a mustache, and let the world take me for what it would; that it was not necessary for me to go about with a label of inferiority pasted across my forehead.
Labor is the fabled magician’s wand, the philosophers stone, and the cap of good fortune.
It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.
O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
And so for a couple of years my life was divided between my music and my school books.
She was my first love, and I loved her as only a boy loves.
This country can have no more democracy than it accords and guarantees to the humblest and weakest citizen.
My luck at the gambling table was varied; sometimes I was fifty to a hundred dollars ahead, and at other times I had to borrow money from my fellow workmen to settle my room rent and pay for my meals.
My mother was kept very busy with her sewing; sometimes she would have another woman helping her.