There is in this world no such force as the force of a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot be permanently chained.

We black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness.

There is always a certain glamour about the idea of a nation rising up to crush an evil simply because it is wrong. Unfortunately, this can seldom be realized in real life; for the very existence of the evil usually argues a moral weakness in the very place where extraordinary moral strength is called for.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships.

The power of the ballot we need in sheer defense, else what shall save us from a second slavery?

[We need reforms] to make the Negro church a place where colored men and women of education and energy can work for the best things regardless of their belief or disbelief in unimportant dogmas and ancient and outworn creeds.

Progress in human affairs is more often a pull than a push, a surging forward of the exceptional man, and the lifting of his duller brethren slowly and painfully to his vantage-ground.