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.

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.'

Whenever your life touches mine, you make me stronger of weaker... there is no escape... people drag others or lift others up.

Start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.

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

An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.

Educated men and women, especially those who are in college, very often get the idea that religion is fit only for the common people. No young man or woman can make a greater error than this.