“You cannot force the Now. — But can you neither condemn nor justify and yet be extraordinarily alive as you walk on? You can never invite the wind, but you must leave the window open.”

“We must consult our means rather than our wishes.”

“the basis of my vegetarianism is not physical, but moral. If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef tea or mutton, even on medical advice, I would prefer death.”

“It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government.”

“Her motherly instinct told her that there was too much of something in Natasha, and that it would prevent her from being happy.”

“Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed towards the sun, one's feet moving forward.”

“They, they, they. That was the problem with people like Joyce. They talked about the richness of their multicultural heritage and it sounded real good, until you noticed that they avoided black people. It wasn't a matter of conscious choice, necessarily, just a matter of gravitational pull, the way integration always worked, a one-way street. The minority assimilated into the dominant culture, not the other way around. Only white culture could be neutral and objective. Only white culture could be nonracial, willing to adopt the occasional exotic into its ranks. Only white culture had individuals. And we, the half-breeds and the college-degreed, take a survey of the situation and think to ourselves, Why should we get lumped in with the losers if we don't want to? We become only so grateful to lose ourselves in the crowd, America's happy, faceless marketplace; and we're never so outraged as when a cabbie drives past us or the woman in the elevator clutches her purse, not so much because we're bothered by the fact that such indignities are what less fortunate coloreds have to put up with every single day of their lives-- although that's what we tell ourselves-- but because we're wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and speak impeccable English and yet have somehow been mistaken for an ordinary nigger. Don't know who I am? I'm an individual!”

“History may be a nightmare—an endless cycle of violence and oppression. Old victims of domination soon became new perpetrators of domination. We have seen this cycle over and over again: American revolutionaries dominating Indigenous peoples and defending slavery, anti-colonial heroes becoming dictators, anti-racists supporting patriarchy and homophobia, liberals crusading for imperial invasion and occupation. Such a nightmare radically calls into question the power of radical love in human history. For King, if we accept such a nightmare, then only self-destruction awaits us. To dream is to hold death at arm’s length. To love is to really be alive in history. Without radical love, nihilism triumphs—“power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”

“Leaders know the great deal of productivity that comes out of a strong self-esteem. They help others to develop this esteem so that productivity can increase.”

“Today we produce only 60,000 to 70,000 engineers per year, 40 percent of whom are foreigners, while China produces over 400,000 engineers per year.”

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

“Remembrance is the only paradise out of which we cannot be driven away. Pleasure is the flower that fades, remembrance is the lasting perfume. Remembrances last longer than present realities; I have preserved blossoms for many years, but never fruits.”

“The dream is ended- this is the morning.”

“There is no God higher than the truth.”

“POTENTIAL IS A PRICELESS TREASURE, LIKE GOLD. ALL OF US HAVE GOLD HIDDEN WITHIN, BUT WE HAVE TO DIG TO GET IT OUT.”