“There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat.”

“It's easy to think of things that need to be done, but they all have a prerequisite, namely, a mass popular base that is committed to implementing it.”

“Living is the challenge. Not dying. Dying is so easy. Sometimes it only takes ten seconds to die. But living? That can take you eighty years and you do something in that time.”

“And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic nor popular - but one must take it because it is right.”

“There are things never meant to be understood, Jessie. Things which cannot now nor ever, through any means, be deciphered. Not through dreams, nor tests, nor divination, nor science, nor speculation.”

“At this moment, then, the Negroes must begin to do the very thing which they have been taught that they cannot do.”