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.

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

If you can't read, it's going to be hard to realize dreams.

I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery.

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

We must not only become reliable, progressive, skillful and intelligent, but we must keep the idea constantly before our youths that all forms of labor, whether with the hand or head, are honorable.

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