quotes by Publisher Quotes

“I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, and fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural . . to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.”

“The valuable person in any business is the individual who can and will cooperate with others.”

“Love is not really blind- the bandage is never so tight but that it can peep.”

“As a career, the business of an orthodox preacher is about as successful as that of a celluloid dog chasing an asbestos cat through hell.”

“Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.”

“My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.”

“The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is love, laughter, and work.”

“Genius is only the power of making continuous efforts.”

“The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it.”

“Lovers are fools, but Nature makes them so.”

“I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.”

“The wise way to benefit humanity is to attend to your own affairs, and thus give other people an opportunity to look after theirs.”

“The man who knows it can't be done counts the risk, not the reward.”

“It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.”

“Your neighbor is the man who needs you.”

“A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success.”

“There is no color line in death. I swear to the lord I still can't see Why Democracy means Everybody but me. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath - America will be! I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.”

“Strength and strength's will are the supreme ethic. All else are dreams from hospital beds, the sly, crawling goodness of sneaking souls.”

“Through my grandmother's stories always life moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother's stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn't cry, either. Something about my grandmother's stories (without her ever having said so) taught me the uselessness of crying about anything."”

“An enemy is anyone who tells the truth about you.”

“We work to become, not to acquire.”

“Politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked”

“The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them-the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent.”

“I would rather have a big burden and a strong back, than a weak back and a caddy to carry life's luggage.”

“Study: concentration of the mind on whatever will ultimately put something in your pocket.”

“Failure -- The man who can tell others what to do and how to do it, but never does it himself.”

“It does not make much difference what a person studies-all knowledge is related, and the man who studies anything, if he keeps at it, will be learned.”

“Violent anger makes me physically ill.”

“So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs.”

“Life is an egg you have to be patient and careful with it or it will break.”

“Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.”

“I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.”

“Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.”

“I pray that I may never meddle, interfere, dictate, give advice that is not wanted, or assist when my services are not needed. If I can help people, I'll do it by giving them a chance to help themselves; and if I can uplift or inspire, let it be by example, inference and suggestion, rather than by injunction and dictation. That is to say, I desire to be Radiant -- to Radiate Life!”

“Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor -- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now -- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.”

“Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced.”

“America never was America to me And yet I swear this oath - America will be!”

“A person may be very secretive and yet have no secrets.”

“Everything comes too late for those who only wait.”

“The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it: so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.”

“Do not dump your woes upon people — keep the sad story of your life to yourself. Troubles grow by recounting them.”

“To supply a thought is mental massage; but to evolve a thought of your own is an achievement. Thinking is a brain exercise and no faculty grows save as it is exercised.”

“LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! True anyhow no matter how many Liars use those words.”

“Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.”

“Every tyrant who ever lived has believed in freedom — for himself.”

“There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.”

“Looks like what drives me crazy Don't have no effect on you-- But I'm gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too.”

“Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.”

“History: a collection of epitaphs.”

“There is a wild, splendid, intoxicating joy that follows work well done.”