I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance.

I have no desire to suffer twice, in reality and then in retrospect.

Jealousy feeds upon suspicion, and it turns into fury or it ends as soon as we pass from suspicion to certainty.

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.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

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

Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you do or as fast. There is a time when you didn't know what you know today.

For all men strive to grasp what they do not know, while none strive to grasp what they already know; and all strive to discredit what they do not excel in, while none strive to discredit what they do excel in. This is why there is chaos.

The clearest way in the Universe is through a forest wilderness.

There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life. . . To seek a total unity is wrong. To give as much meaning to one’s life as possible is right to me.

The charges we bring against others often come home to ourselves; we inveigh against our faults which are as much ours as theirs; and so our eloquence ends by tellings against ourselves.

You write in order to change the world…the world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even but a millimetre the way people look at reality, then you change it.

If you cannot be honest with yourself, there is no hope of being honest with anyone else.

And even a liar can be scared into telling the truth, same as honest man can be tortured into telling a life.

The quick pain of truth can pass away, but the slow eating agony of a lie is never lost.

When whole races and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should we care anything about the trifling lies told by individuals?

No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as the truth.

If you want to be successful, you must respect one rule: never lie to yourself.

I hope you have not been leading a double life, pretending to be wicked and being good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide.

But what is happiness except for the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.