Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.

I believe in pride of race and lineage and self: in pride of self so deep as to scorn injustice to other selves.

The dark world is going to submit to its present treatment just as long as it must and not one moment longer.

The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the shadowy and of the Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single blacks flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness.

It is the wind and the rain, O God, the cold and the storm that make this earth of yours to blossom and bear its fruit. So in our lives it is storm and stress and hurt and suffering that make real men and women bring the world's work to its highest perfection.

Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.

All art is propaganda...I do not care a damn, for any art that is not used for propaganda.