Quote collection
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"The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power."
"My entire stay there [high school] might have been time lost if it hadn't been for the unique personality of a brilliant teacher. Miss Kirwin was that rare educator who was in love with information. I will always believe that her love of teaching came not so much from her liking for students but from her desire to make sure that some of the things she knew would find repositories so that they could be shared again."
"You might encounter defeats but you must never be defeated... Love a lot. Laugh a lot at the silliest things and be very serious... love life."
"We do the best we can with what we know, and when we know better, we do better."
"We are loved by Love itself. There is nothing good that we can't do."
"Today, the first & last of every Tree/ Speaks to humankind. Come to me, here beside the River."
"When my grandmother died, I realized that even if I had millions of dollars, I couldn't find her anywhere on earth. My next thought was that I would die. I looked at my life and thought, "I'm afraid to die." I concluded that whether I was afraid or not, I would die. It was one of the most important crossroads in my life, once I realized that no matter what, I would do this thing, the next step was to think, "If I am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing - dying - is it possible that I could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?""
"It is imperative that young white men and women study the black American history. It is imperative that blacks and whites study the Asian American history."
"The trouble for the thief is not how to steal the chief’s bugle, but where to blow it."
"I am convinced that courage is the most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you cannot practice any other virtue consistently. You can be kind for a while; you can be generous for a while; you can be just for a while, or merciful for a while, even loving for a while. But it is only with courage that you can be persistently and insistently kind and generous and fair."
"You don't have to tell everything you know, but let what you do say be the truth as you understand it."
"I thank God that I've lived long enough to see what I have seen, and I pray that people will continue to do better. We are doing better, it may not seem so, but there was a time when people were lynched in the middle of the street and it was not against the law. We are doing better, but we have so much more to do."
"I thought if war did not include killing, I'd like to see one every year."
"There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win its service to my side are useless as wounded pride, and much more painful."
"Glory falls around us as we sob a dirge of desolation on the Cross"
"He thrived with passion and compassion, humor and style. We had him whether we know who he was or did not know, he was ours and we were his."
"Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood."
"I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories."
"If more Africans had eaten missionaries, the continent would be in better shape."
"My mother raised me, and then freed me."