... the constructive power of an image is not measured in terms of its truth, but of the love it inspires.

... one of the blind spots of most Negroes is their failure to realize that small overtures from whites have a large significance... I now realize that this feeling inevitably takes possession of one in the bitter struggle for equality. Indeed, I share it. Yet I wonder how we can expect total acceptance to step full grown from the womb of prejudice, with no embryo or infancy or childhood stages.

When we lose love, we lose also our identification with the universe and with eternal values--an identification which alone makesit possible for us to lay our lives on the altar for what we believe.

... in 1950 a very large slice of the white South stood at the crossroads in its attitude toward its colored citizens and [was] psychologically capable of turning either way.

I have known no experience more distressing than the discovery that Negroes didn't love me. Unutterable loneliness claimed me. I felt without roots, like a man without a country.

... the structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, "Be tolerant--even of evil." Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth's criminals, "I disagree that it's all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion." Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.

... the constructive power of an image is not measured in terms of its truth, but of the love it inspires.