You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you have to overcome to reach your goals.

Mere connection with what is known as a superior race will not permanently carry an individual forward unless the individual has worth.

Political activity alone cannot make a man free. Back of the ballot, he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character.

There is a certain class of race problem-solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.

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.

My whole life has largely been one of surprises.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.