“No, you’re going in vain,” she mentally addressed a company in a coach-and-four who were evidently going out of town for some merriment. “And the dog you’re taking with you won’t help you. You won’t get away from yourselves.”

“All of the people of the world cannot do the so-called big things. Some of us will have to be content doing the so-called little things, but we must do the little things in a big way. We must do the ordinary things in an extraordinary manner. And we must overcome our sense of inferiority by doing just this - by somehow accepting that we have to do and doing that well”

“It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain.”

“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!”

“Not only will we have to repent for the sins of bad people; but we also will have to repent for the appalling silence of good people.”

“Never, never marry, my friend. Here’s my advice to you: don’t marry until you can tell yourself that you’ve done all you could, and until you’ve stopped loving the woman you’ve chosen, until you see her clearly, otherwise you’ll be cruelly and irremediably mistaken. Marry when you’re old and good for nothing...Otherwise all that’s good and lofty in you will be lost.”

“Debemos ser el cambio que queremos en el mundo.” 

“The secret is authenticity. The reason people fail is because they’re pretending to be something they’re not.”

“Let your autobiography contain these words; "I was able to think positively, love affectionately and work efficiently". Thinking, loving and working are what make us different from animals and trees.”

“Your condition does not determine your life history. It’s your decision in that condition that tells more about your destiny. Decide not to see the available as the preferable!”

“Now the trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.”

“The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet. ”

“You have been complaining so long about your labour pains. It's time to show us your baby! What at all have you been dreaming about that long? Let's see it and give it a name!”

“Don’t hesitate to begin because it seems to you that you have a long way to go. It is better to spend your life moving in the right direction one step at a time than to have no direction at all. No matter what your problems may be, things can get better with God’s help.”

“It is harder to end a war, than begin one.”