"I read 'Up From Slavery,' by Booker T. Washington, and then my doom - if I may so cal it - of being a race leader dawned upon me in London..."

"I have been keeping in touch with your good work in America, and although there is a difference of opinion on the lines on which the Negro should develop himself, yet the fair minded critic cannot fail in admiring your noble efforts."

"I visited Tuskegee and paid my respects to the dead hero, Booker Washington, and then returned to New York, where I organized the New York division of the Universal Negro Improvement Association."

"A fool in Africa is not better than a fool in America"

"No one cares for a man with empty head and pocket, no matter what his color is"

"Learn all you can, but learn to do something, or your learning will be useless"

"The fact that a man goes into the world conscious that he has within himself the power to create a wagon or a house gives him a certain moral backbone and independence in the world that he could not possess without it"

"Two nations or races are good friends in proportion as the one has something by way of trade that the other wants"

"Physical death comes to the one Negro lynched in a county, but death of the morals, death of the soul, comes to the thousands responsible for the lynching"

"I further contended that, in relation to his vote, the Negro should more and more consider the interests of the community in which he lived, rather than seek alone to please some one who lived a thousand miles away from him and from his interests."

"I tried to emphasize the fact that while the Negro should not be deprived by unfair means of the franchise, political agitation alone would not save him, and that back of the ballot he must have property, industry, skill, economy, intelligence, and character, and that no race without these elements could permanently succeed."

"I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others; the most miserable are those who do the least. I have also found that few things, if any, are capable of making one so blind and narrow as race prejudice."

“The political philosophy of Black nationalism means that the Black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more. The Black man in the Black community has to be re-educated into the science of politics so he will know what politics is supposed to bring him in return. Don't be throwing out any ballots. A ballot is like a bullet. You don't throw your ballots until you see a target, and if that target is not within your reach, keep your ballot in your pocket.”

Don't be proud of your knowledge, Consult the ignorant and the wise; the limits of art are not reached, no artist's skills are perfect; good speech is more hidden than emeralds, yet may be found among maids at the grindstones.

"Let us say it boldly, that if the total slum violations of law by the white man over the years were calculated and were compared with the lawbreaking of a few days of riots, the hardened criminal would be the white man.

In using the term 'white man' I am seeking to describe in general terms the Negro's adversary. It is not meant to encompass all white people.

...It is not the race per se that we fight but the policies and ideology that leaders of that race have formulated to perpetuate oppression."