All quotes

Overlooking partial and temporary evils as inseparable from the practical operation of all human institutions, and looking only to the general result, every patriot has reason to be satisfied.

The thoughtful framers of our Constitution legislated for our country as they found it.

Go as far as you dare in the heart of a lonely land, you cannot go so far that life and death are not before you.

None other than this long brown land lays such a hold on the affections. The rainbow hills, the tender bluish mists, the luminous radiance of the spring, have the lotus charm.

And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and blossoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long.

And yet, in spite of the opposition encountered, and the obstacles opposed to their acquisition of knowledge and their accumulation of property, the progress made by colored women along these lines has never been surpassed by that of any people in the history of the world.

Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance.

Shirking responsibility has never been a fault with which colored women might be truthfully charged.

With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope.

Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful

I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves

Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long in freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished.

The many have always been enthralled by the few; and, monsters who have scarcely shown any discernment of human excellence, have tyrannized over thousands of their fellow creatures.

Why do they expect virtue from a slave, or from a being whom the constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?

Do not fall into the entitlement trap of feeling you are a victim, you are not. Get over it and get on with it.

Happiness demands a certain outcome, it is result reliant.

I have never had any trouble turning the page in the book of my life.

I try to scare myself at least once a day.

If happiness is what you’re after, then you are going to be let down frequently and be unhappy much of your time.

It’s just as important where we are not as it is where we are.

One thing you can depend on people being…is people.

The greatest snipers and marksmen in the world don’t aim at the target, they aim on the other side of it.

The race is never over. The journey has no port. The adventure never ends because we are always on our way.

They may be truths to me, but don’t think that that makes them mine… because you can’t own a truth.

We do our best when our destinations are beyond the “measurement,” when our reach continually exceeds our grasp, when we have immortal finish lines.