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 have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

If no other consideration had convinced me of the value of the Christian life, the Christ like work which the Church of all denominations in America has done during the last 35 years for the elevation of the black man would have made me a Christian.

Ignorance is more costly to any State than education.

Success is not measured by where you are in life, but the obstacles you've over come

To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say 'Cast down your bucket where you are.'

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.