The quote database

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.

At times we were almost disposed to give up, and try to content ourselves with our wretched lot; at others, we were firm and unbending in our determination to go.

The responsibility of success or failure lay heavily upon me.

The strength of our determination was about to be fully tested.

One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time.

One must not avoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves and before no other judge.

The whole point depends upon his being at once humble enough to wonder, and haughty enough to defy.

With foresight, and a willingness on the part of our people to face up to the vast responsibility which history has clearly placed upon our country, the difficulties I have outlined can and will be overcome.

Finally we must have courage and self-confidence to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After all, the greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we are coping.

We must show courage in a time of blessing by confronting problems instead of passing them on to future generations.

Doubt and mistrust are the mere panic of timid imagination, which the steadfast heart will conquer, and the large mind transcend.

Every struggle is a victory.

Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns.

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship

Providence treats us like a generous father, and brings us up to labors, toils, and dangers; whereas the indulgence of a fond mother makes us weak and spiritless.

Great men, I say, often rejoice at crosses of fortune just as brave soldiers do at wars.

If you have no confidence in self you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence you have won even before you have started.

Shirking responsibility has never been a fault with which colored women might be truthfully charged.

Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance.

Your fears must be mastered before you can win in any worthwhile undertaking in life.

But instinct is something which transcends knowledge.

We demand nothing more than this, and we will take nothing less.

No one will insist upon your rights while you yourself doubt that you have any.

who did not delay for any formal vote to empower him to do so, but followed him because he was born to command

Into the most pitiful and abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy the world, so only it have the countenance of the beloved object.