Category: Thought

The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.

There are causes worth dying for, but none worth killing for.

A living man can be enslaved and reduced to the historic condition of an object. But if he dies in refusing to be enslaved, he reaffirms the existence of another kind of human nature which refuses to be classified as an object.

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.

The basis of our political system is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government.

If you treat an individual… as if he were what he ought to be and could be, he will become what he ought to be and could be.

We can’t form our children on our own concepts; we must take them and love them as God gives them to us.

Whatever you do or dream you can do – begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it.

The destiny of the colored American . . . is the destiny of America.

I would unite with anybody to do right; and with nobody to do wrong.