What you think is who you are.

The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.

A problem well-put is half-solved.

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.

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

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen — not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.

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

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.

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.

Next to the assumption of power is the responsibility of relinquishing it.

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.

What makes night within us may leave stars.

It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow-beings.

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?

Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished.

Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.

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.

Appearance rules the world.

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.

Knowing your own darkness is the best method for dealing with the darknesses of other people.

In reading lives of great people, I found the first victory won was over themselves.

My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness.

None are more taken in by flattery than the proud, who wish to be the first and are not.

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is the victory over self.

He who has so little knowledge of human natures as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

I do nothing upon myself, and yet am mine own executioner.

And God said love your enemy and I obeyed him and loved myself.

Drag your thoughts away from your troubles… by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it.

Men who reject the responsibility of thought and reason can only exist as parasites on the thinking of others.

Bless a thing and it will bless you. Curse it and it will curse you. . . If you bless a situation, it has no power to hurt you, and even if it is troublesome for a time, it will gradually fade out, if you sincerely bless it.

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.

Life does not consist of facts. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.

At the end of the day, we can endure more than we think we can.

Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even dearth is one of the things that Nature wills.