The happiest people are those who do the most for others. The most miserable are those who do the least.

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Decide to be your best. In the long run the world is going to want and have the best and that might as well be you.

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I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.

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Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highly of them, when instead they should try to get their people to think more highly of themselves. It's wonderful when the people believe in their leader. It's more wonderful when the leader believes in their people! You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

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There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.

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Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

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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.

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Start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough.

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Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

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There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.

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