Cannot the nation that has absorbed ten million foreigners into its political life without catastrophe absorb ten million Negro Americans into that same political life at less cost than their unjust and illegal exclusion will involve?

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

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach.

I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done.

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

Whether you like it or not the millions are here, and here they will remain. If you do not lift them up, they will pull you down... Education must not simply teach work - it must teach life.