Is a civilization naturally backward because it is different? Outside of cannibalism, which can be matched in this country, at least, by lynching, there is no vice and no degradation in native African customs which can begin to touch the horrors thrust upon them by white masters. Drunkenness, terrible diseases, immorality, all these things have been gifts of European civilization.

When in this world a man comes forward with a thought, a deed, a vision, we ask not how does he look, but what is his message?. . . The world still wants to ask that a woman primarily be pretty. . . .

I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not.

A classic is a book that doesn't have to be written again.

The world is shrinking together; it is finding itself neighbor to itself in strange, almost magic degree.

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

I am one who tells the truth and exposes evil and seeks with Beauty for Beauty to set the world right.