If you're for the right thing, you do it without thinking.

A foreign country is a point of comparison, where from to judge his own.

I am overwhelmed by the grace and persistence of my people.

By no amount of agile exercising of a wistful imagination could my mother have been called lenient. Generous she was; indulgent never. Kind, yes, permissive, never. In her world, people she accepted paddled their own canoes, pulled their own weight, put their own shoulders to their own plows and pushed like hell.

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.

A leader sees greatness in other people. He nor she can be much of a leader if all she sees is herself.

If I wanted to write, I had to be willing to develop a kind of concentration found mostly in people awaiting execution. I had to learn technique and surrender my ignorance.

Life loves the liver of it.

When you know better you do better.

Surviving is important. Thriving is elegant.

To grow up is to stop putting blame on parents

You can only become great at something you are willing to sacrifice for

My life has been one great big joke, A dance that's walked, A song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke, When I think about myself.

My life has been one great big joke, a dance that's walked a song that's spoke, I laugh so hard I almost choke when I think about myself.

At fifteen life had taught me undeniably that surrender, in its place, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.

We need much less than we think we need.

Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.

Anything that works against you can also work for you once you understand the Principle of Reverse.

The main thing in one's own private world is to try to laugh as much as you cry.

I have found that among its other benefits, giving liberates the soul of the giver.

Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say,—’Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come not into their confusion.

In general, every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.