It often requires more courage to suffer in silence than to rebel, more courage not to strike back than to retaliate, more courage to be silent than to speak.

Dignify and glorify common labor. It is at the bottom of life that we must begin, not at the top.

I believe that my race will succeed in proportion as it learns to do a common thing in an uncommon manner; learns to do a thing so thoroughly that no one can improve upon what it has done; learns to make its services of indispensable value.

No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

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

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.