Howard Thurman

Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.

What I have written is but a fleeting intimation of the outside of what one man sees and may tell about the path he walks. No one shares the secret of a life; no one enters into the heart of the mystery.

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is more people who have come alive

What the world need is people who have come alive.

A bigot is a person who makes an idol of his commitments.

There must be always remaining in every life, some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathless and beautiful.

At the core of life is a hard purposefulness, a determination to live.

Often, to be free means the ability to deal with the realities of one's own situation so as not to be overcome by them.

The years, the months, the days, and the hours have flown by my open window. Here and there an incident, a towering moment, a naked memory, an etched countenance, a whisper in the dark, a golden glow these and much more are the woven fabric of the time I have lived.

If a man knows precisely what he can do to you or what epithet he can hurl against you in order to make you lose your temper, your equilibrium, then he can always keep you under subjection.

Fate is the raw materials of experience. They come uninvited and often unanticipated. Destiny is what a man does with these raw materials.

Growth always involves the risk of failure.

Twilight - a time of pause when nature changes her guard. All living things would fade and die from too much light or too much dark, if twilight were not.

Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.