To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships..

Ignorance is a cure for nothing..

We must complain. Yes, plain, blunt complaint, ceaseless agitation, unfailing exposure of dishonesty and wrong - this is the ancient, unerring way to….

Education must not simply teach work-it must teach life..

I am especially glad of the divine gift of laughter: it has made the world human and lovable, despite all its pain and wrong..

Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime..

Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States..

There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise.

Children learn more from what you are than what you teach..

Education is that whole system of human training within and without the school house walls, which molds and develops men..

Begin with art, because art tries to take us outside ourselves. It is a matter of trying to create an atmosphere and context so conversation can flow….

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stands up and protests. The protest need not be merely physical-the throwing of stones and b….

In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no 'two evils'….

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression..

Lord of the springtime, Father of flower, field and fruit, smile on us in these earnest days when the work is heavy and the toil wearisome; lift up o….

Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The….

Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future….

Today I see more clearly than yesterday that the back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it: ….

One is astonished in the study of history at the recurrence of the idea that evil must be forgotten, distorted, skimmed over. We must not remember th….

The chief problem in any community cursed with crime is not the punishment of the criminals, but the preventing of the young from being trained to cr….

The worker must work for the glory of his handiwork, not simply for pay; the thinker must think for truth, not for fame..