If it was so honorable and glorious to be black, why was it the yellow-skinned people among us had so much prestige?

If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don't keer if you die at dusk. It's so many people never seen de light at all.

It's a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing.

The North has no interest in the particular Negro, but talks of justice for the whole. The South has not interest, and pretends none, in the mass of Negroes but is very much concerned about the individual.

The liquor of statecraft is distilled from the mash you got.

want won't kill you half as quick as worry will.

Such as I am, I am a precious gift.