“You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more.”

“In the home begins the disruption of the peace of the world.”

“Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.”

“something happened to me. God heard my deep cries of anguish. A feeling of lightness flowed over me, and I knew a change of heart had taken place. I felt different. I was different. At last I stood up, placed the Bible on the edge of the tub, and went to the sink. I washed my face and hands, straightened my clothes. I walked out of the bathroom a changed young man. “My temper will never control me again,” I told myself. “Never again. I’m free.” And since that day, since those long hours wrestling with myself and crying to God for help, I have never had a problem with my temper. That”

“Brother and Sister So & So are not your standard; Jesus is.” 

“[A] lawyer without books would be like a workman without tools.”

“But whenever I tried to pin down this idea of self-esteem, the specific qualities we hoped to inculcate, the specific means by which we might feel good about ourselves, the conversation always seemed to follow a path of infinite regress. Did you dislike yourself because of your color or because you couldn’t read and couldn’t get a job? Or perhaps it was because you were unloved as a child—only, were you unloved because you were too dark? Or too light? Or because your mother shot heroin into her veins … and why did she do that anyway? Was the sense of emptiness you felt a consequence of kinky hair or the fact that your apartment had no heat and no decent furniture? Or was it because deep down you imagined a godless universe? Maybe one couldn’t avoid such questions on the road to personal salvation. What I doubted was that all the talk about self-esteem could serve as the centerpiece of an effective black politics. It demanded too much honest self-reckoning from people; without such honesty, it easily degenerated into vague exhortation. Perhaps with more self-esteem fewer blacks would be poor, I thought to myself, but I had no doubt that poverty did nothing for our self-esteem. Better to concentrate on the things we might all agree on. Give that black man some tangible skills and a job. Teach that black child reading and arithmetic in a safe, well-funded school. With the basics taken care of, each of us could search for our own sense of self-worth.”

“Message! With God's help you can change and take control of your life. You plus God equals enough.”

“Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”

“Courageous people do not fear forgiving, for the sake of peace.”

“If you have the character to hang in there when its tough, you will develop or acquire every other characteristic necessary to WIN in the game of life.”

“The big secret in life is there is no secret. Whatever your goal. You can get there if you're willing to work.”

“There will come a time when people hungering for the truth will seek it where it is supposedly disseminated, such as books and churches, but they will not hear the Word of the Lord. Instead of receiving a message to satisfy their spiritual longings, they will hear a sermon on some current political or social problem, or a sermonette on art and literature. And so they wander from one place to another, going from hope to despair, and eventually giving up.”

“Dream don't work unless you do”

“We imagine that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us.”