I believe that all men, black and brown, and white, are brothers, varying, through Time and Opportunity, in form and gift and feature, but differing in no essential particular, and alike in soul and in the possibility of infinite development.

---

This the American black man knows: his fight here is a fight to the finish. Either he dies or wins. If he wins it will be by no subterfuge or evasion of amalgamation . He will enter modern civilization here in America as a black man on terms of perfect and unlimited equality with any white man, or he will enter not at all. Either extermination root and branch, or absolute equality. There can be no compromise. This is the last great battle of the west.

---

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

---

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

---

There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even peace.

---

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: and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance, and disease of the majority of their fellow men.

---

We cannot escape the clear fact that what is going to win in this world is reason, if this ever becomes a reasonable world.

---

A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.

---

The main thing is the YOU beneath the clothes and skin--the ability to do, the will to conquer, the determination to understand and know this great, wonderful, curious world.

---

There may often be excuse for doing things poorly in this world, but there is never any excuse for calling a poorly done thing, well done.

---