It is important and right that all privileges of the law be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of those privileges.

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

Had (I) been a member of a more popular race, I should have been inclined to yield to the temptation of depending upon my ancestry and my colour to do that for me which I should do for myself. Years ago I resolved that because I had no ancestry myself I would leave a record of which my children would be proud, and which might encourage them to still higher effort

I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

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.

An ounce of application is worth a ton of abstraction.

The negro has within him immense power for self-uplifting, but for years it will be necessary to guide and stimulate him.