Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!

The danger of crippling thought, the danger of obstructing the formation of the public mind by specially suppressing ... representations is far greater than any real danger that there is from such representations.

A learned man is an idler who kills time by study.

Our prejudices are so deeply rooted that we never think of them as prejudices but call them common sense.

War can so easily be gilt with romance and heroism and solemn national duty and patriotism and the like by persons whose superficial literary and oratorical talent covers an abyss of Godforsaken folly.

The haughty American nation ... makes the Negro clean its boots and then proves the moral and physical inferiority of the Negro by the fact that he is a bootblack.

If there was nothing wrong in the world there wouldn't be anything for us to do.