But art is not simply works of art; it is the spirit that knows Beauty, that has music in its soul and the color of sunsets in its headkerchiefs; that can dance on a flaming world and make the world dance, too.

The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame.

No people can more exactly interpret the inmost meaning of the present situation in Ireland than the American Negro. The scheme is simple. You knock a man down and then have him arrested for assault. You kill a man and then hang the corpse.

Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life.

The music of an unhappy people, of the children of disappointment; they tell of death and suffering and unvoiced longing toward a truer world, of misty wanderings and hidden ways.

There is but one coward on earth, and that is the coward that dare not know.

The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line.