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.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

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.

When civil fury first grew high, and men fell out they knew not why.

To fly as fast as thought, you must begin by knowing that you have already arrived.

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

Amid the seeming confusion of our mysterious world, individuals are so nicely adjusted to a system, and systems to one another and to a whole, that, by stepping aside for a moment, a man exposes himself to a fearful risk of losing his place forever.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness for the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in.

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Those disputing, contradicting, and confuting people are generally unfortunate in their affairs. They get victory, sometimes, but they never get good will, which would be of more use to them.

The first method of estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

You have no idea what your legacy will be. Your legacy is what you do every day. Your legacy is every life you’ve touched, every person whose life was either moved or not. It’s every person you’ve harmed or helped. That’s your legacy.

When I'm good I'm very good, but when I'm bad, I'm better.