It isn't more light we need, it isn't more truth, and it isn't more scientific data. It is more Christ, more courage, more spiritual insight to act on the light we have.

The tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream...It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is sin.

Every man and woman is born into the world to do something unique and something distinctive and if he or she does not do it, it will never be done.

. . . the circumference of life cannot be rightly drawn until the center is set.

Failure isn't in not reaching your goal but in having no goal to reach.

The tragedy of life is not found in failure but complacency. Not in you doing too much, but doing too little. Not in you living above your means, but below your capacity. It's not failure but aiming too low, that is life's greatest tragedy.

For nearly a century, the South made itself believe that Negroes and white people were really communicating. So convinced of this were the white Southerners that they almost made the nation believe that they, and only they, knew the mind of the Southern Negro.