Slavery is a condition imposed upon individuals or races not sufficiently able to protect or defend themselves, and so long as a race or people expose themselves to the danger of being weak, no one can tell when they will be reduced to slavery.
I do not speak carelessly or recklessly but with a definite object of helping the people, especially those of my race, to know, to understand, and to realize themselves.
Wake up Ethiopia! Wake up Africa! Let us work towards the one glorious end of a free, redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations.
The greatest possesion of man is character.
Lose not courage, lose not faith, go forward.
Black men of Carthage, Ethiopia, of Timbuktu and Alexandria gave the likes of civilization to this world.
What you do to-day that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.
We are not engaged in domestic politics, in church building or in social uplift work, but we are engaged in nation building.
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.
Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.
Our success educationally, industrially and politically is based upon the protection of a nation founded by ourselves. And the nation can be nowhere else but in Africa.
A reading man and woman is a ready man and woman, but a writing man and woman is exact.
Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom.
God and Nature first made us what we are, and then out of our own created genius we make ourselves what we want to be. Follow always that great law. Let the sky and God be our limit and Eternity our measurement.
Look to Africa, for there a king will be crowned.
There shall be no solution to this race problem until you, yourselves, strike the blow for liberty.
The pen is mightier than the sword, but the tongue is mightier than them both put together.
I like honesty and fair play.
There is no humanity before that which starts with yourself.
Men who are in earnest are not afraid of consequences.