“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.”

“If you rely only on your eyes, your other senses weaken.”

“It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence. Violence is any day preferable to impotence. There is hope for a violent man to become non-violent. There is no such hope for the impotent.”

“People say there are two kinds of learning: experience, which is gained from your own mistakes, and wisdom, which is learned from the mistakes of others.”

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”

“But have you learned yet that tomorrow's answers usually don't come until tomorrow gets here?”

“If the world is meaningless, then so are we; if we mean something, we do not mean alone.”

“The taste of your life depends on the spices you used to brew it. Add laziness to it and it becomes bitter as the bile; put a cube of good attitudes into it and you will lick your lips more and more due to its sweet taste.”

“Have the courage to take your own thoughts seriously, for they will shape you.”

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

“The deeper the difficulty in fulfilling a dream, the brighter the outcome of its fulfillment and the sweeter the celebration thereof. Persist to the end; don't give up!”

“‎Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.”

“Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep”

“He who is kind to the poor lends to the LORD, and he will reward him for what he has done. PROVERBS 19:17”

“You Can’t Tell Everybody One of the saddest realities we must face about life is that everybody is not going to be happy when we prosper. People haters can’t stand your dreaming of a better life, despise your happiness, turn their nose up at you because you take extra care in your speech and appearance. They get angry when you find a better job or a new love. They stop speaking to you when you give up negative behaviors.”