“Faith doesn’t always instantly deliver you, but it always carries you through.”

“Don't keep looking for "something" in the bag of "nothing". You will see the same thing again and again no matter how many times you repeat the look.”

“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.”

“We cannot walk alone.”

“If people like you they'll listen to you, but if they trust you they'll do business with you.” 

“The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.”

“I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world. It is so much waste of time. My shyness has been in reality my shield and buckler. It has allowed me to grow. It has helped me in my discernment of truth.”

“You cannot fulfil God's purposes for your life while focusing on your own plans. ” 

“Build a solid courage behind what you believe you can do. Your dreams may drift and fall, but when your courage is strong and still, you can’t shift; you’ll lift your dreams again!”

“Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.”

“The simplest formular for a fulfilled life is; God+Wisdom+Industry! God is the source of your destiny and purpose; Wisdom is the potential he gives to you to make right choices; Your industry reveals your responsibility to release whatever the God of your purpose introduced you to by your divine thoughts and imaginations!”

“L'humanité court à son suicide si le monde n'adopte pas la non-violence.”

“Keep moving; don't stop by to check on whoever else is not willing to go. The entire road is yours to speed on till you get there. Never be discouraged!”

“By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the the impossible.”

“You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time.”