All that is important in this moment is movement. Make the movement vital and worth living. Do not let it slip away unnoticed and unused.

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

Hold every moment sacred. Give each clarity and meaning, each the weight of thine awareness, each its true and due fulfillment.

As the traveler who has once been from home is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep, so a knowledge of one other culture should sharpen our ability to scrutinize more steadily, to appreciate more lovingly, our own.

Man can learn nothing unless he proceeds from the known to the unknown.

The universe is wider than our views of it.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. Each of us carries his own life-form—an indeterminable form which cannot be superseded by any other.

You must try to observe yourself more and more objectively, to look at everything in yourself as though another person.

It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.

Be not swept off your feet by the vividness of the impression, but say, “Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are and what you represent. Let me try you.”

Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.

The more I study science the more I believe in God.

A problem well-put is half-solved.

The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that.

It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.

Your body is precious. It is our vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.

You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world; and that is an idea whose time has come.

View your life from your funeral: Looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn't? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what wouldn't you do?

There is only one time that is important—now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.

Don’t make yourself miserable with what is to come or not to come.

History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we made today.