"It would be against all nature for all the Negroes to be either at the bottom, top, or in between. We will go where the internal drive carries us like everybody else. It is up to the individual."

"It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it."

"So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures, and laughter."

"It's a funny thing, the less people have to live for, the less nerve they have to risk losing nothing."

"Gray hair is God's graffiti."

"A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation."

"Nothing in human nature is so God-like as the disposition to do good to our fellow-creatures."

"That which we call the Hindu religion is really the Eternal religion because it embraces all others."