A productive and happy life is not something you find; it is something you make.

The government can't make people love me, but it can keep them from lynching me.

Whatever your life's work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.

Vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?

I will always remember my delight when Mrs. Georgia Gilmore - an unlettered woman of unusual intelligence - told how an operator demanded that she get off the bus after paying her fare and board it again by the back door, and then drove away before she could get there. She turned to Judge Carter and said: "When they count the money, they do not know Negro money from white money.

Carve a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment.

The negro cannot win the respect of the white people of the south or the peoples of the world if he is willing to sell the future of his children for his personal and immediate comfort and safety.