Greatness is largely a social accident, and almost always socially supported.

I plunged into the job of creating something from nothing.... Though I hadn't a penny left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve.

In each experience of my life, I have had to step out of one little space of the known light, into a large area of darkness. I had to stand awhile in the darkness, and then gradually God has given me light. But not to linger in. For as soon as that light has felt familiar, then the call has always come to step out ahead again into new darkness.

I thought, maybe the difference between white folks and colored is just this matter of reading and writing. I made up my mind I would know my letters.

There is a place in God's sun for the youth "farthest down" who has the vision, the determination, and the courage to reach it.

I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you respect for the use of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity.

Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living.