You may fill your heads with knowledge or skillfully train your hands, but unless it is based upon high, upright character, upon a true heart, it will amount to nothing. You will be no better than the most ignorant.

If you can't read, it's going to be hard to realize dreams.

There is no power on earth that can neutralize the influence of a high, simple and useful life.

If you truly want to measure the success of a man, you do not measure it by a position he has achieved, but by the obstacles he has overcome.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any individual who is so unfortunate as to get into the habit of holding race prejudice, for nothing else makes one so blind and narrow.

There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I resolved then that I would permit no man, no matter what his color, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.