No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.

The individual who can do something that the world wants done will, in the end, make his way regardless of his race.

No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts.

I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.

To hold a man down, you have to stay down with him.