A race, like an individual, lifts itself up by lifting others up.

Every person who has grown to any degree of usefulness, every person who has grown to distinction, almost without exception has been a person who has risen by overcoming obstacles, by removing difficulties, by resolving that when he met discouragement he would not give up.

I have begun everything with the idea that I could succeed, and I never had much patience with the multitudes of people who are always ready to explain why one cannot succeed.

The wisest among my race understand that agitations of social equality is the extremist folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing.

A sure way for one to lift himself up is by helping to lift someone else.

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

If I have done anything in life worth attention, I feel sure that I inherited the disposition from my mother.