...the individual ceases to be himself; he adopts entirely the kind of personality offered to him by cultural patterns; and he therefore becomes exactly as all others are and as they expect him to be...The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identical with millions of other automatons around him, need not feel alone and anxious any more. But the price he pays, however, is high; it is the loss of his self.

The heights by great men reached and kept Where not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

I was in darkness, but I took three steps and found myself in paradise. The first step was a good thought, the second, a good word; and the third, a good deed.

An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over ashes.

You assist an evil system most effectively by obeying its orders and decrees. An evil system never deserves such allegiance. Allegiance to it means partaking of the evil. A good person will resist an evil system with his or her whole soul.

If you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize that you have compromised your integrity.

A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the wills of others, but that he can mold and master his own will: and things serve him who serves Truth; people seek guidance of him who is master of himself.

If you know the enemy and know yourself you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.

Thus not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but it hides his descendants and separates his contemporaries from him; it throws him back forever upon himself alone and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within solitude of his own heart.

No matter how outrageous a lie may be, it will be accepted if stated loudly enough and often enough.

Those who would administer wisely must, indeed, be wise, for one of the serious obstacles in the improvement of our race is indiscriminate charity.

To do as one would be done by, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, constitute the ideal perfection of utilitarian morality.

Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights.

In this age, the man who dares to think for himself and to act independently does a service to his race.

That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.

It never ceases to amaze me: We all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.

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.

Racism must be opposed by all means that humanity has at its disposal.

The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

We demand that big business give the people a square deal; in return we must insist that when anyone engaged in big business honestly endeavors to do right he shall be given a square deal.

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.

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

The United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world.