There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.
Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future will, in all reasonable possibility, be what colored men make of it.
There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.
The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
Herein lies the tragedy of the age: Not that men are poor, – all men know something of poverty. Not that men are wicked, – who is good? Not that men are ignorant, – what is truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men.
Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.
Little of beauty has America given the world save the rude grandeur God himself stamped on her bosom; the human spirit in this new world has expressed itself in vigor and ingenuity rather than in beauty.
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.
There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.
Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow back and forth and we can be influenced by each other.
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.
Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater, broader, and fuller life.
The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, – the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.
The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself.
The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience.
Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men.
A classic is a book that doesn’t have to be written again.
If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.
To stimulate wildly weak and untrained minds is to play with mighty fires.