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Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 – 16 April 1904) was a Scottish author and reformer.

Quotes

 * England was nothing, compared to continental nations until she had become commercial…until about the middle of the last century, when a number of ingenious and inventive men, without apparent relation to each other, arose in various parts of the kingdom, succeeded in giving an immense impulse to all the branches of the national industry; the result of which has been a harvest of wealth and prosperity, perhaps without a parallel in the history of the world.
 * Lives of the Engineers (1862)

 * A place for everything, and everything in its place.
 * Thrift (1875)

 * Good actions give strength to ourselves, and inspire good actions in others.
 * Duty: With Illustrations of Courage, Patience, and Endurance (1880), Ch. 2, p. 49

 * Mere political reform will not cure the manifold evils which now afflict society. There requires a social reform, a domestic reform, an individual reform.
 * As quoted in Samuel Smiles and the Victorian Work Ethic (1987) by Timothy Travers, p. 162

Self-Help; with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859)

 * Full text online

 * "Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.
 * Ch. I : Self-Help — National and Individual; earlier variant of the proverb quoted: God helps them who help themselves; recorded in Jacula Prudentum (1651) by George Herbert

'''The Government of a nation itself is usually found to be but the reflex of the individuals composing it. The Government that is ahead of the people will inevitably be dragged down to their level, as the Government that is behind them will in the long run be dragged up.''' In the order of nature, the collective character of a nation will as surely find its befitting results in its law and government, as water finds its own level. The noble people will be nobly ruled, and the ignorant and corrupt ignobly. Indeed all experience serves to prove that the worth and strength of a State depend far less upon the form of its institutions than upon the character of its men. For the nation is only an aggregate of individual conditions, and civilization itself is but a question of the personal improvement of the men, women, and children of whom society is composed.
 * Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small personal sacrifice; but no laws, however stringent, can make the idle industrious, the thriftless provident, or the drunken sober. Such reforms can only be effected by means of individual action, economy, and self-denial; by better habits, rather than by greater rights.
 * Ch. I : Self-Help — National and Individual

 * The greatest slave is not he who is ruled by a despot, great though that evil be, but he who is in the thrall of his own moral ignorance, selfishness, and vice.
 * Ch. I : Self-Help — National and Individual

 * Nothing is more common than energy in money-making, quite independent of any higher object than its accumulation. A man who devotes himself to this pursuit, body and soul, can scarcely fail to become rich. Very little brains will do; spend less than you earn; add guinea to guinea; scrape and save; and the pile of gold will gradually rise.
 * Ch. X : Money — Its Use and Abuse

 * We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
 * Ch. XI : Self-Culture — Facilities and Difficulties

 * The crown and glory of life is Character. It is the noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and an estate in the general goodwill; dignifying every station, and exalting every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and secures all the honour without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tells; for it is the result of proved honour, rectitude, and consistency — qualities which, perhaps more than any other, command the general confidence and respect of mankind.
 * Ch. XIII : Character — The True Gentleman

 * Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that the habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year.  And we possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the will as to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to yield happiness and improvement rather than their opposites.
 * Ch. XIII : Character — The True Gentleman

Misattributed

 * Sow a thought, and you reap an act; Sow an act, and you reap a habit; Sow a habit, and you reap a character; Sow a character, and you reap a destiny.
 * Saying published anonymously in The Dayspring, Vol. 10 (1881) by the Unitarian Sunday-School Society, and quoted in Life and Labor (1887) by Smiles; this is most often attributed to George Dana Boardman, at least as early as 1884, and to Ralph Waldo Emerson, but also sometimes attributed to William Makepeace Thackeray as early as 1891, probably because in in Life and Labor Smiles adds a quote by Thackeray right after this one, to Charles Reade in 1903, and to William James as early as 1906, because it appears in his Principles of Psychology (1890)

Quotes about Smiles

 * Self-Help is one of the most delightful and invigorating books it has been my happy fortune to meet with. It has done me nothing but good, nor can I conceive how it should do harm to any. … The object of the book briefly is, to reinculcate these old-fashioned but wholesome lessons — which perhaps cannot be too often urged — that youth must work in order to enjoy; that nothing creditable can be accomplished without application and diligence; that the student must not be daunted by difficulties, but conquer them by patience and perseverance ; and that, after all, he must seek elevation of character, without which capacity is worthless and worldly success is naught.
 * Robert Blatchford, in A Book about Books (1903)

 * Utilitarianism had found [in Smiles’ Self-Help] its portrait gallery of heroes, inscribed with a vigorous exhortation to all men to strive in their image; this philistine romanticism established the bourgeois hero-prototype—the penniless office-boy who works his way to economic fortune and this wins his way into the mercantile plutocracy.
 * John Carroll, Break-Out from the Crystal Palace (1974), p. 12

 * Every now and then they were awarded prizes — Self-Help by Smiles, and other books suitable for perusal by persons suffering from almost complete obliteration of the mental faculties.
 * Robert Tressell, in The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists (Penguin, 2004), pp. 572-73

 * It's a brutal book; it ought to be burnt by the common hangman. Smiles was the arch-Philistine, and his book the apotheosis of respectability, gigmanity, and selfish grab.
 * An unnamed English labor leader quoted by Robert Blatchford, in A Book about Books (1903); also quoted in The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes (2002) by Jonathan Rose, p. 68

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title: Samuel Smiles


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Alice James

Alice James (7 August, 1848 - 6 March 1892) was a U.S. diarist, the sister of Henry James and William James. She is known primarily for the posthumously published diary she kept in the last years of her life.

Quotes

 * What sense of superiority it gives one to escape reading some book which every one else is reading.
 * As quoted in Alice James, Her Brothers — Her Journal (1934).

 * Truly nothing is to be expected but the unexpected.
 * As quoted in Alice James, Her Brothers — Her Journal (1934).

title: Alice James


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Elbert Hubbard

Elbert Green Hubbard (19 June 1856 – 7 May 1915) was an American writer, publisher, artist, businessman, anarchist and libertarian socialist philosopher. He was an influential exponent of the Arts and Crafts movement, founding the Roycroft enterprises. He and his wife Alice Moore Hubbard died in the sinking of the RMS Lusitania.

Quotes

 * Genius is often only the power of making continuous efforts. 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. How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience, would have achieved success. As the tide goes clear out, so it comes clear in. In business sometimes prospects may seem darkest when really they are on the turn. A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success. There is no failure except in no longer trying. There is no defeat except from within, no really insurmountable barrier save our own inherent weakness of purpose.
 * As quoted from Electrical Review (c. 1895) without further attribution in The Search for the North Pole (1896) by Evelyn Briggs Baldwin, p. 520, this was later published as part of various works by Hubbard, including FRA Magazine : A Journal of Affirmation (1915), and An American Bible (1918) edited by Alice Hubbard. A portion of this was once misattributed to Amelia J Calver in The Manifesto (January 1896) by the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing (Shakers), p. 184, and more recently to Kin Hubbard at some sites on the internet.

 * Most Authors cringe and flatter and Fish for compliments. If they fail to get Applause, they say the World is a Scurvy Place and those who dwell therein a Dirty Lot: if they succeed, they give thanks to Nobody, saying they got only what their Meritt entitles them to. But I rather like the World. The Flesh is pleasing and the Devil does not trouble me.
 * Preface to Love Ballads of the Sixteenth Century (1897)

 * Every man should have a college education in order to show him how little the thing is really worth. The intellectual kings of the earth have seldom been college-bred.
 * Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters (1899), p. 186

 * There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. The sternest comment that can be made against employers as a class lies in the fact that men of Ability usually succeed in showing their worth in spite of their employer, and not with his assistance and encouragement.
 * The Philistine magazine, August 1901
 * "The Crying Need", in A Message to Garcia, and Thirteen Other Things (1901), p. 163

 * Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyhow.
 * The Motto Book (1907)

 * Freedom cannot be bestowed — it must be achieved.
 * Elbert Hubbard, in his essay on Booker T. Washington in Little Journeys For 1908, p. 21; Franklin D. Roosevelt later used this line on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation: "In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved".

 * Life is just one damn thing after another.
 * Attributed in Items of Interest, Vol. 33 (1911), p. 8

 * Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.
 * The Philistine (May 1913)
 * The Roycroft Dictionary Concocted by Ali Baba and the Bunch on Rainy Days (1914)
 * Famous Lines: A Columbia Dictionary of Familiar Quotations (1997), see Adlai Stevenson for a later variation

 * It is not to be wondered that men have worshiped the ocean, for in his depths they have seen mirrored the image of Eternity — of Infinity. Here they have seen the symbol of God's great plan of oneness with His creatures, for the sea is the union of all infinite particles, and it takes the whole to make the one.
 * "The Sea" in The Philosophy of Elbert Hubbard (1916), p. 169

 * Anyone who idolizes you is going to hate you when he discovers that you are fallible. He never forgives. He has deceived himself, and he blames you for it.
 * An American Bible (1918) edited by Alice Hubbard

 * Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you'll never be criticized.
 * "John North Willys", in Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings, Part 2 (1922), p. 335

 * Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them.
 * "J.B. Runs Things," Short Stories and Index: Elbert Hubbard's Selected Writings, Part 14 (1923), p. 278

 * He picked up the lemons that Fate had sent him and started a lemonade-stand.
 * Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1922) p. 237
 * Often quoted as "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade"
 * Also: A genius is a man who takes the lemons that Fate hands him and starts a lemonade stand with them. (As quoted in Reader's Digest (October 1927), p. 343

 * If you want work well done, select a busy man ‚ the other kind has no time.
 * The Note Book (1927)

 * Some one has said that we are moving so fast that when plans are being made to perform some great feat, these plans are broken into by a youth who enters and says, "I have done it."
 * Heart-to-Heart Talks with Philistines by the Pastor of His Flock, The Philistine magazine, May 1913
 * Variant: The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.
 * As quoted in The Treasury of Humorous Quotations (1951) by Evan Esar, p. 103
 * Variant: In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.
 * As quoted in More Random Walks In Science : An Anthology (1982) by Robert L. Weber, p. 109

 * Philosophy rests on a proposition that whatever is is right. Preaching begins by assuming that whatever is is wrong.
 * The Philistine (October 1897)

 * The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without.
 * The Philistine (May 1907)

 * Piety is the tinfoil of pretense.
 * The Philistine (September 1908)

A Message to Garcia (1899)

 * "A Message to Garcia", first published 22 February 1899, in the March 1899 issue of Philistine

 * The point I wish to make is this: McKinley gave Rowan a letter to be delivered to Garcia; Rowan took the letter & did not ask, "Where is he at?" By the Eternal! there is a man whose form should be cast in deathless bronze and the statue placed in every college of the land. It is not book-learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebrae which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies: do the thing — "Carry a message to Garcia!"

 * If men will not act for themselves, what will they do when the benefit of their effort is for all?

 * Have I put the matter too strongly? Possibly I have; but when all the world has gone a-slumming I wish to speak a word of sympathy for the man who succeeds — the man who, against great odds, has directed the efforts of others, and having succeeded, finds there's nothing in it: nothing but bare board and clothes. I have carried a dinner pail and worked for day's wages, and I have also been an employer of labor, and I know there is something to be said on both sides. There is no excellence, per se, in poverty; rags are no recommendation; and all employers are not rapacious and high-handed, any more than all poor men are virtuous. My heart goes out to the man who does his work when the "boss" is away, as well as when he is at home. And the man who, when given a letter for Garcia, quietly takes the missive, without asking any idiotic questions, and with no lurking intention of chucking it into the nearest sewer, or of doing aught else but deliver it, never gets "laid off" nor has to go on a strike for higher wages.

Anything such a man asks shall be granted. He is wanted in every city, town and village — in every office, shop, store and factory. The world cries out for such: he is needed and needed badly — the man who can "Carry a Message to Garcia."
 * Civilization is one long anxious search for just such individuals.

Credo (1901)

 * As published in A Message to Garcia, and Thirteen Other Things (1901), p. 6

I believe in the Blessed Trinity of Father, Mother and Child.''' I believe that God is here, and that we are as near Him now as ever we shall be. I do not believe He started this world a-going and went away and left it to run by itself. I believe in the sacredness of the human body, this transient dwelling place of a living soul, And so I deem it the duty of every man and every woman to keep his or her body beautiful through right thinking and right living. '''I believe that the love of man for woman, and the love of woman for man is holy; And that this love in all its promptings is as much an emanation of the Divine Spirit as man's love for God, or the most daring hazards of the human mind. I believe in salvation through economic, social, and spiritual freedom.''' I believe John Ruskin, William Morris, Henry Thoreau, Walt Whitman, and Leo Tolstoy to be Prophets of God, who should rank in mental reach and spiritual insight with Elijah, Hosea, Ezekiel, and Isaiah. '''I believe that men are inspired to-day as much as ever men were. I believe we are now living in Eternity as much as ever we shall. I believe that the best way to prepare for a Future Life is to be kind, live one day at a time, and do the work you can do best, doing it as well as you can.''' I believe we should remember the Week-day, to keep it holy. I believe there is no devil but fear. I believe that no one can harm you but yourself. I believe in my own divinity — and yours. I believe that we are all sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. I believe the only way we can reach the Kingdom of Heaven is to have the Kingdom of Heaven in our hearts. I believe in every man minding his own business. I believe in sunshine, fresh air, friendship, calm sleep, beautiful thoughts. I believe in the paradox of success through failure. I believe in the purifying process of sorrow, and I believe that death is a manifestation of life. '''I believe the Universe is planned for good. I believe it is possible that I shall make other creeds, and change this one, or add to it, from time to time, as new light may come to me.'''
 * '''I believe in the Motherhood of God.

The Better Part (1901)

 * "The Better Part" in A Message to Garcia and Thirteen Other Things (1901), pp. 147-155; also in Jesus Was An Anarchist (1910)

All good men are Anarchists.''' All cultured, kindly men; all gentlemen; all just men are Anarchists. Jesus was an Anarchist. A Monarchist is one who believes a monarch should govern. A Plutocrat believes in the rule of the rich. A Democrat holds that the majority should dictate. An Aristocrat thinks only the wise should decide; while an Anarchist does not believe in government at all. Richard Croker is a Monarchist; Mark Hanna a Plutocrat; Cleveland a Democrat; Cabot Lodge an Aristocrat; William Penn, Henry D. Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and Walt Whitman were Anarchists. An Anarchist is one who minds his own business. An Anarchist does not believe in sending warships across wide oceans to kill brown men, and lay waste rice fields, and burn the homes of people who are fighting for liberty. An Anarchist does not drive women with babes at their breasts and other women with babes unborn, children and old men into the jungle to be devoured by beasts or fever or fear, or die of hunger, homeless, unhouseled and undone. '''Destruction, violence, ravages, murder, are perpetrated by statute law. '''
 * '''I AM an Anarchist.

 * I believe that brutality tends to defeat itself. Prizefighters die young, gourmands get the gout, hate hurts worse the man who nurses it, and all selfishness robs the mind of its divine insight, and cheats the soul that would know. Mind alone is eternal. He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps. My faith is great: out of the transient darkness of the present the shadows will flee away, and Day will yet dawn. I am an Anarchist.

Being an Anarchist I am also a Socialist.''' Socialism is the antithesis of Anarchy. One is the North Pole of Truth, the other the South. The Socialist believes in working for the good of all, while Anarchy is pure Individualism. I believe in every man working for the good of self; and in working for the good of self, he works for the good of all. To think, to see, to feel, to know; to deal justly; to bear all patiently; to act quietly; to speak cheerfully; to moderate one's voice — these things will bring you the highest good. They will bring you the love of the best, and the esteem of that Sacred Few, whose good opinion alone is worth cultivating. And further than this, it is the best way you can serve Society — live your life. The wise way to benefit humanity is to attend to your own affairs, and thus give other people an opportunity to look after theirs. If there is any better way to teach virtue than by practicing it, I do not know it. '''Would you make men better — set them an example. The millenium will never come until governments cease from governing, and the meddler is at rest.''' Politicians are men who volunteer the task of governing us, for a consideration. The political boss is intent on living off your labor. A man may seek an office in order to do away with the rascal who now occupies it, but for the most part office-seekers are rank rogues. Shakespeare used the word politician five times, and each time it is synonymous with knave. That is to say, a politician is one who sacrifices truth and honor for policy. The highest motive of his life is expediency — policy. In King Lear it is the "scurvy politician," who through tattered clothes beholds small vices, while robes and furred gowns, for him, covers all.
 * '''No man who believes in force and violence is an Anarchist. The true Anarchist decries all influences save those of love and reason. Ideas are his only arms.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private individuals will occasionally kill theirs. So long as men are clubbed, robbed, imprisoned, disgraced, hanged by the governing class, just so long will the idea of violence and brutality be born in the souls of men.
 * Mankind is governed by the worst — the strongest example of this is to be seen in American municipalities, but it is true of every government. We are governed by rogues who hold their grip upon us by and through statute law. Were it not for law the people could protect themselves against these thieves, but now we are powerless and are robbed legally. One mild form of coercion these rogues resort to is to call us unpatriotic when we speak the truth about them. Not long ago they would have cut off our heads. The world moves. Governments cannot be done away with instantaneously, but progress will come, as it has in the past by lessening the number of laws. We want less governing, and the ideal government will arrive when there is no government at all.

A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911)

 * Full text online, East Aurora, The Roycrofters, 1911'

 * It takes brains to make money, but any dam fool can inherit. P.S.: I never inherited any money.
 * p. 10

 * The happiest mortals on earth are ladies who have been bereaved by the loss of their husbands.
 * p. 10

 * The sad thing about the optimist is his state of mind concerning himself.
 * Literary people of the opposite sex do not really love each other. All they really desire is to read their manuscript aloud to a receptive listener.
 * p. 11

 * If men could only know each other, they would never either idolize or hate.
 * p. 13

 * Too often the reformer has been one who caused the rich to band themselves against the poor.
 * p. 14

 * And the worst part about making a soldier of a man is not that a soldier kills brown men or white men, but that the soldier loses his own soul.
 * p. 15

 * Good people are only half as good, and bad people only half as bad, as other people regard them.
 * p. 16

 * If we ever damned it will not be because we have loved too much, but because we have loved too little.
 * p. 16

 * Every spirit makes his own house, but as afterwards the house confines its spirit, you had better build well.
 * p. 16

 * "Should we have an Eleventh Commandment?" asked a youth of the Greatest Living Actress. "Most assuredly, no - we have ten too many now!" answered the divine Sara.
 * p. 17

 * Knowledge is the distilled essence of our intuitions, corroborated by experience.
 * p. 18

 * I believe more in the goodness of bad people than i do in the badness of good people.
 * p. 18

 * A Miracle: An event described by those to whom it was told by men who did not see it.
 * p. 30; this has also appeared in recent years in paraphrased form as "A miracle is an event described by those to whom it was told by people who did not see it."

 * Life is a compromise between fate and free will.
 * p. 36

 * It is the weak man who urges compromise—never the strong man.
 * p. 52

 * Do not take life too seriously – you will never get out of it alive.
 * p. 74

 * One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
 * p. 151

Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great (1916)

 * Full text online

So they try Plan Number Two, which consists in hypnotizing the public by means of shows, festivals, parades, prizes and many paid speeches, sermons and editorials, wherein and whereby the public is told how much is being done for it, and how fortunate it is in being protected and wisely cared for by its divinely appointed guardians. Then the band strikes up, the flags are waved, three passes are made, one to the right and two to the left; and we, being completely under the hypnosis, hurrah ourselves hoarse. Plan Number Three is a very ancient one and is always held back to be used in case Number Two fails. It is for the benefit of the people who do not pass readily under hypnotic control. If there are too many of these, they have been known to pluck up courage and answer back to the speeches, sermons and editorials. Sometimes they refuse to hurrah when the bass-drum plays, in which case they have occasionally been arrested for contumacy and contravention by stocky men, in wide-awake hats, who lead the strenuous life. This Plan Number Three provides for an armed force that shall overawe, if necessary, all who are not hypnotized. The army is used for two purposes — to coerce disturbers at home, and to get up a war at a distance, and thus distract attention from the troubles near at hand. Napoleon used to say that the only sure cure for internal dissension was a foreign war: this would draw the disturbers away, on the plea of patriotism, so they would win enough outside loot to satisfy them, or else they would all get killed, it really didn't matter much; and as for loot, if it was taken from foreigners, there was no sin. A careful analyst might here say that Plan Number Three is only a variation of Plan Number Two — the end being gained by hypnotic effects in either event, for the army is conscripted from the people to use against the people, just as you turn steam from a boiler into the fire-box to increase the draft. ...
 * There have always existed three ways of keeping the people loving and loyal. One is to leave them alone, to trust them and not to interfere. This plan, however, has very seldom been practised, because the politicians regard the public as a cow to be milked, and something must be done to make it stand quiet.
 * Vol. XIV: Great Musicians, Chapter 8: "Ludwig van Beethoven," pp. 228-230

The Roycraft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)

 * Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.

 * Wealth: A cunning device of Fate whereby men are made captive, and burdened with responsibilites from which only Death can file their fetters.

 * A failure is a man who has blundered, but is not able to cash in the experience.

 * An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all.

 * If your religion does not change you, then you had better change your religion.

 * Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes a day. Wisdom consists of not exceeding the limit.

The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard (1927)

 * The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard: Mottoes, Epigrams, Short Essays, Passages, Orphic Sayings and Preachments (1927)

 * If you err it is not for me to punish you. We are punished by our sins not for them.
 * p. 12
 * in The Note Book, Kessinger Publishing (reprint 1998) ISBN 0766104168, 9780766104167

 * It is only life and love that give love and life.
 * p. 40

 * Young women with ambitions should be very crafty and cautious, lest mayhap they be caught in the soft, silken mesh of a happy marriage, and go down to oblivion, dead to the world.
 * p. 54

 * I have no perfect panacea for human ills. And even if I had I would not attempt to present a system of philosophy between the soup and fish, but this much I will say: The distinctively modern custom of marital bundling is the doom of chivalry and death of passion. It wears all tender sentiment to a napless warp, and no wonder is it that the novelist, without he has a seared and bitter heart, hesitates to follow the couple beyond the church door. There is no greater reproach to our civilization than the sight of men joking the boy whose heart is pierced by the first rays of a life-giving sun, or of our expecting a girl to blush because she is twice God's child today she was yesterday.
 * p. 57

 * The great Big Black Things that have loomed against the horizon of my life, threatening to devour me, simply loomed and nothing more. The things that have really made me miss my train have always been sweet, soft, pretty, pleasant things of which I was not in the least afraid.
 * p. 61

 * 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.
 * p. 64

 * Do not go out of your way to do good whenever it comes your way. Men who make a business of doing good to others are apt to hate others in the same occupation. Simply be filled with the thought of good, and it will radiate — you do not have to bother about it, any more than you need trouble about your digestion.
 * p. 71

 * Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
 * p. 112

 * The newspapers print what the people want, and thus does the savage still swing his club and flourish his spear.
 * p. 142

 * I am not sure just what the unpardonable sin is, but I believe it is a disposition to evade the payment of small bills.
 * p. 146

 * Do not dump your woes upon people — keep the sad story of your life to yourself. Troubles grow by recounting them.
 * p. 156

 * Men who marry for gratification, propagation or the matter of buttons or socks, must expect to cope with and deal in a certain amount of quibble, subterfuge, concealments, and double, deep-dyed prevarication.
 * p. 159

 * When you see a tomcat with his whiskers full of feathers, do not say "Canary!" — he'll take offense.
 * p. 159

 * Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books.
 * p. 160

 * Literature is the noblest of all the arts. Music dies on the air, or at best exists only as a memory; oratory ceases with the effort; the painter's colors fade and the canvas rots; the marble is dragged from its pedestal and is broken into fragments.
 * p. 170

 * The weaknesses of the many make the leader possible—and the man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also. Discipleship is a degenerating process to all parties concerned. People who are able to do their own thinking should not allow others to do it for them.
 * p. 197

 * A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

 * Life without absorbing occupation is hell — joy consists in forgetting life.

 * Making men live in three worlds at once — past, present and future has been the chief harm organized religion has done.

 * Our admiration is so given to dead martyrs that we have little time for living heroes.

 * Perfume; Any smell that is used to drown a worse one.

 * Respectability is the dickey on the bosom of civilization.

 * There is no such thing as success in a bad business.

 * The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

 * The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

 * The way to learn to earn a living is to go at it and earn a living.

 * To remain on earth you must be useful, otherwise Nature regards you as old metal, and is only watching for a chance to melt you over.

 * Why not be a top-notcher? A top-notcher is simply an individual who works for the institution of which he is a part, not against it.

 * Woman's inaptitude for reasoning has not prevented her from arriving at truth; nor has man's ability to reason prevented him from floundering in absurdity.

Quotes about Hubbard

Neither appeared perturbed in the least. Your father and Mrs. Hubbard linked arms — the fashion in which they always walked the deck — and stood apparently wondering what to do. I passed him with a baby which I was taking to a lifeboat when he said, "Well, Jack, they have got us. They are a damn sight worse than I ever thought they were." They did not move very far away from where they originally stood. As I moved to the other side of the ship, in preparation for a jump when the right moment came, I called to him, "What are you going to do?" and he just shook his head, while Mrs. Hubbard smiled and said, "There does not seem to be anything to do." The expression seemed to produce action on the part of your father, for then he did one of the most dramatic things I ever saw done. He simply turned with Mrs. Hubbard and entered a room on the top deck, the door of which was open, and closed it behind him. It was apparent that his idea was that they should die together, and not risk being parted on going into the water.
 * I can not say specifically where your father and Mrs. Hubbard were when the torpedoes hit, but I can tell you just what happened after that. They emerged from their room, which was on the port side of the vessel, and came on to the boat-deck.
 * Ernest C. Cowper, a survivor of the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, in a letter to Hubbard's son Elbert Hubbard II (12 March 1916), published in Selected Writings of Elbert Hubbard : His Mintage of Wisdom, Coined from a Life of Love, Laughter and Work (1922)

 * I think of what Elbert Hubbard said. It struck me rather strangely the other day. He said: "If you are going to reform the world you had better begin with yourself, and there will be one rogue less in the world." Of course, I did not want to apply that to myself, but I would not object to applying it to you.
 * J. Golden Kimball, Conference Report, October 1921

title: Elbert Hubbard


text:
Beverly Sills

Beverly Sills (born Belle Silverman; 25 May 1929 – July 2, 2007) was a Grammy award winning coloratura soprano, perhaps the best-known American opera singer in the 1960s and 1970s.

Quotes

 * I needed to sing — desperately. My voice poured out more easily because I was no longer singing for anyone's approval; I was beyond caring about the public's reaction, I just wanted to enjoy myself. … I had found a kind of serenity, a new maturity, as a result of my childrens' problems. I didn't feel better or stronger than anyone else but it seemed no longer important whether everyone loved me or not — more important now was for me to love them. Feeling that way turns your whole life around; living becomes the act of giving.
 * Bubbles : A Self-Portrait (1976), p. 114

 * A happy woman is one who has no cares at all; a cheerful woman is one who has cares but doesn't let them get her down.
 * As quoted in The Quotable Woman (1978) by Elaine Partnow, p. 399

 * There is a growing strength in women but it's in the forehead, not the forearm. Men will always be attracted to women with nice soft arms and a fleshy bosom.
 * As quoted in TIME Vol. 120 (1982)

 * Why should I go when it's going so good? … I lived through the garbage. I might as well dine on the caviar.
 * As quoted in "Caviar for Beverly Sills" in The New York Times (15 October 1984)

 * So long as it doesn't get to the point where you don't remember whose opera you're listening to, I'm willing to experiment.
 * As quoted in Newsweek, Vol. 103, (1984), p. iv

 * I've always tried to go a step past wherever people expected me to end up. I'm not about to change now.
 * Beverly : An Autobiography (1988), p. 356

 * My voice had a long, nonstop career. It deserves to be put to bed with quiet and dignity, not yanked out every once in a while to see if it can still do what it used to do. It can't.
 * As quoted in TIME (1983), and The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio

 * Art is the signature of civilizations.
 * As quoted in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio

 * I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter.
 * As quoted in The Beacon Book of Quotations by Women (1992) by Rosalie Maggio

 * There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
 * As quoted in Conquering an Enemy Called Average (1996) by John L. Mason

 * You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
 * As quoted in Incredible Quotations : 230 Thought-Provoking Quotes with Prompts to Spark Students' Writing, Thinking, and Discussion (1997) by Jacqueline Sweeney

Misattributed

 * In youth, we run into difficulties. In old age, difficulties run into us.
 * Josh Billings, as quoted in Mac's Giant Book of Quips and Quotes (1983) by E. C. McKenzie

 * You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!
 * Franklyn Broude, as quoted in Sitting on a File Cabinet, Naked, with a Gun: True Stories of Silicon Valley (2009) by Linda McFarland, Joanne Linden and Sharon Turnoy

 * Christians should never fail to sense the operation of an angelic glory. It forever eclipses the world of demonic powers, as the sun does a candle's light.
 * Billy Graham, as quoted in The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Book of Revelation (2001) by Stan Campbell and James S. Bell, p. 54

 * Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.
 * Wayne Dyer, quoted in The Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Buddhism (2002) by Gary Gach, p. 285

 * Attachment to spiritual things is... just as much an attachment as inordinate love of anything else.
 * Thomas Merton, in New Seeds of Contemplation (1961)

 * Anger begins with folly, and ends with repentance.
 * Pythagoras, as quoted in Treasury of Thought : Forming an Encyclopædia of Quotations from Ancient and Modern Authors (1894) by Maturin Murray Ballou

 * A primary function of art and thought is to liberate the individual from the tyranny of his culture in the environmental sense and to permit him to stand beyond it in an autonomy of perception and judgment.
 * Lionel Trilling, in his introducton to  Beyond Culture (1976) by Edward T. Hall

title: Beverly Sills


text:
Booker T. Washington

Booker Taliaferro Washington (April 5, 1856 – November 14, 1915) was an American political leader, educator and author of African ancestry, most famous for his tenure as President of Tuskegee University (1880–1915).

Quotes

 * Men may make laws to hinder and fetter the ballot, but men cannot make laws that will bind or retard the growth of manhood. We went into slavery a piece of property; we came out American citizens. We went into slavery pagans; we came out Christians. We went into slavery without a language; we came out speaking the proud Anglo-Saxon tongue. We went into slavery with slave chains clanking about our wrists; we came out with the American ballot in our hands. Progress, progress is the law of nature; under God it shall be our eternal guiding star.
 * "The Problems of the Colored Race in the South," lecture, Hamilton Club, Chicago (10 December 1895)

 * Character, not circumstances, makes the man.
 * "Democracy and Education", speech, Institute of Arts and Sciences, Brooklyn NY (30 September 1896)

 * I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.
 * The Story of My Life and Work, vol. I (1900), ch. XV: Cuban Education and the Chicago Peace Jubilee Address

 * There is no power on earth, that can neutralize the influence of a high, pure, simple and useful life.
 * "The Virtue of Simplicity," from Character Building: Being Addresses Delivered on Sunday Evenings to the Students of Tuskegee Institute (1902), p. 41

 * The world cares very little what you or I know, but it does care a great deal about what you or I do.
 * Address to the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, Boston, Massachusetts (30 July 1903), printed in "Account of the Boston Riot," Boston Globe (31 July 1903)

 * Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
 * An Address on Abraham Lincoln before the Republican Club of New York City (12 February 1909)

 * In any country, regardless of what its laws say, wherever people act upon the idea that the disadvantage of one man is the good of another, there slavery exists. Wherever, in any country the whole people feel that the happiness of all is dependent upon the happiness of the weakest, there freedom exists.
 * An Address on Abraham Lincoln before the Republican Club of New York City (12 February 1909)

 * There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
 * As quoted in The Great Quotations (1971) edited by George Seldes, p. 366

 * There is no escape — man drags man down, or man lifts man up.
 * As quoted in The Great Quotations (1971) edited by George Seldes, p. 366

 * You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.
 * As quoted in The Great Quotations (1971) edited by George Seldes, p. 641

 * In all things social as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
 * As quoted in speech by Edward de Veaux Morrell (April 1904)

 * We have cleared the forests, reclaimed the land, and are building cities, railroads, and great institutions.
 * As quoted in Emancipation Proclamation, September 22, 1862 (1919), by E.G. Renesch, Chicago

1900s

 * The unprecedented leap the Negro made when freed from the oppressing withes of bondage is more than deserving of a high place in history. It can never be chronicled. The world needs to know of what mettle these people are built.
 * "Introduction" (1902), Progress of a Race: Or, The Remarkable Advancement of the Afro-American

 * After making careful inquiry I can not find a half a dozen cases of a man or woman who has completed a full course of education in any of our reputable institutions like Hampton, Tuskegee, Fiske, or Atlanta, who are imprisoned. The records of the South show that 90 percent of the colored people imprisoned are without knowledge of trades and 61 percent are illiterate. But it has been said that the negro proves economically valueless in proportion as he is educated. Let us see. All will agree that the negro in Virginia, for example, began life forty years ago in complete poverty, scarcely owning clothing or a day's food. The reports of the State auditor show the negro today owns at least one twenty-sixth of the real estate in that Commonwealth exclusive of his holdings in towns and cities, and that in the counties east of the Blue Ridge Mountains he owns one-sixteenth. In Middlesex County he owns one-sixth: in Hanover, one-fourth. In Georgia the official records show that, largely through the influence of educated men and women from Atlanta schools and others, the negroes added last year $1,526,000 to their taxable property, making the total amount upon which they pay taxes in that State alone $16,700,000. Few people realize under the most difficult and trying circumstances, during the last forty years, it has been the educated negro who counseled patience, self-control, and thus averted a war of races. Every negro going out of our institutions properly educated becomes a link in the chain that shall forever bind the two races together in all essentials of life.
 * Speech in New York (12 February 1904), as quoted in speech by Edward de Veaux Morrell in the House of Representatives (4 April 1904)

Up From Slavery (1901)

 * Full text online at Project Gutenberg

 * From some things that I have said one may get the idea that some of the slaves did not want freedom. This is not true. I have never seen one who did not want to be free, or one who would return to slavery.
 * Chapter I: A Slave Among Slaves

 * I pity from the bottom of my heart any nation or body of people that is so unfortunate as to get entangled in the net of slavery. I have long since ceased to cherish any spirit of bitterness against the Southern white people on account of the enslavement of my race. No one section of our country was wholly responsible for its introduction, and, besides, it was recognized and protected for years by the General Government. Having once got its tentacles fastened on to the economic and social life of the Republic, it was no easy matter for the country to relieve itself of the institution. Then, when we rid ourselves of prejudice, or racial feeling, and look facts in the face, we must acknowledge that, notwithstanding the cruelty and moral wrong of slavery, the ten million Negroes inhabiting this country, who themselves or whose ancestors went through the school of American slavery, are in a stronger and more hopeful condition, materially, intellectually, morally, and religiously, than is true of an equal number of black people in any other portion of the globe. This is so to such an extend that Negroes in this country, who themselves or whose forefathers went through the school of slavery, are constantly returning to Africa as missionaries to enlighten those who remained in the fatherland. This I say, not to justify slavery — on the other hand, I condemn it as an institution, as we all know that in America it was established for selfish and financial reasons, and not from a missionary motive — but to call attention to a fact, and to show how Providence so often uses men and institutions to accomplish a purpose.
 * Chapter I: A Slave Among Slaves

 * I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. Looked at from this standpoint, I almost reached the conclusion that often the Negro boy's birth and connection with an unpopular race is an advantage, so far as real life is concerned. With few exceptions, the Negro youth must work harder and must perform his tasks even better than a white youth in order to secure recognition. But out of the hard and unusual struggle through which he is compelled to pass, he gets a strength, a confidence, that one misses whose pathway is comparatively smooth by reason of birth and race.
 * Chapter II: Boyhood Days

 * I learned the lesson that great men cultivate love, and that only little men cherish a spirit of hatred. I learned that assistance given to the weak makes the one who gives it strong; and that oppression of the unfortunate makes one weak.
 * Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them

 * I would permit no man, no matter what his colour might be, to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
 * Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them.
 * This statement was quoted in Charm and Courtesy in Conversation (1904) by Frances Bennett Callaway, p. 153 as "I permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him." It has also often been paraphrased in various other ways:
 * I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. I let no man drag me down so low as to make me hate him.

 * Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
 * Chapter XI: Making Their Beds Before They Could Lie On Them

 * Nothing ever comes to me, that is worth having, except as the result of hard work.
 * Chapter XII: Raising Money

 * Cast down your bucket where you are.
 * Chapter XIV: The Atlanta Exposition Address
 * This address was a speech at the Cotton States and International Exposition, Atlanta (1895-09-18)

 * In all things that are purely social we can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
 * Chapter XIV: The Atlanta Exposition Address

 * No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.
 * Chapter XIV: The Atlanta Exposition Address

 * No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward.
 * Chapter XVI: Europe

 * In one thing, at least, I feel sure that the English are ahead of Americans, and that is, they have learned how to get more out of life. The home life of the English seems to me to be about as perfect as anything can be. Everything moves like clockwork. I was impressed, too, with the deference that the servants show to their "masters" and "mistresses" - terms which I suppose would not be tolerated in America. The English servant expects, as a rule, to be nothing but a servant, and so he perfects himself in the art to a degree that no class of servants in America has yet reached. In our country the servant expects to become, in a few years, a "master" himself. Which system is preferable? I will not venture an answer.
 * Chapter XVI: Europe

 * My whole life has largely been one of surprises. I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant, unexpected encouragements of this kind if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day of his life — that is, tries to make each day reach as nearly as possible the high-water mark of pure, unselfish, useful living.
 * Chapter XVII: Last Words

My Larger Education, Being Chapters from My Experience (1911)

 * Full text

 * There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
 * Ch. V: The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob, p. 118

 * I am afraid that there is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don't want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public. My experience is that people who call themselves "The Intellectuals" understand theories, but they do not understand things. I have long been convinced that, if these men could have gone into the South and taken up and become interested in some practical work which would have brought them in touch with people and things, the whole world would have looked very different to them. Bad as conditions might have seemed at first, when they saw that actual progress was being made, they would have taken a more hopeful view of the situation.
 * Ch. V: The Intellectuals and the Boston Mob

Misattributed

 * Associate yourself with people of good quality, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.
 * "Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad Company." This was a French maxim, late 16th century, as quoted by George Washington in his "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation," Rule # 56 (ca. 1744)

 * Opportunity is like a bald-headed man with only a patch of hair right in front. You have to grab that hair, grasp the opportunity while it's confronting you, else you'll be grasping a slick bald head.
 * This seems to be a paraphrase sumarizing a speech at the Carrie Tuggle Institute, Birmingham, as described in Thinking Black: Some of the Nation's Best Black Columnists Speak Their Mind (1997) by DeWayne Wickham

Quotes about Booker T. Washington

 * Alphabetized by author

 * There is trouble in the White House More than you can tell; Yelling like wild men,  Niggers raising hell.I see a way to settle it  Just as clear as water, Let Mr. Booker Washington  Marry Teddy's daughter.
 * Anonymous, "Niggers in the White House", sts. 11–12 (1901)

 * Now Washington is a great and good man, a Christian statesman, and take him all in all the greatest man, save General Lee, born in the South in a hundred years; but he is not a typical negro.
 * John Spencer Bassett, 'Stirring Up the Fires of Race Antipathy', South Atlantic Quarterly, II (1903), p. 299

 * Almost everything Washington said or did was shot through with a certain irony. He bowed before the prejudices of the meanest Southerner, but he moved in circles in the North which were closed to all but a few white men. He told Negroes that Jim Crow was irrelevant, but he himself violated the law by riding first class in Pullman cars with Southern white men and women. And irony of ironies: he who advised Negroes to forget about politics wielded more political power than any other Negro in American history.
 * Lerone Bennett Jr.,

 * Booker T. Washington advised, networked, cut deals, made threats, pressured, punished enemies, rewarded friends, greased palms, manipulated the media, signed autographs, read minds with the skill of a master psychologist, strategized, raised money, always knew where the camera was pointing, traveled with an entourage, waved the flag with patriotic speeches, and claimed to have no interest in partisan politics. In other words, he was an artful politician. He was not a lawyer, scholar, college-bred man, or a military hero. But he knew how to use the power of symbolism through the lens of a storyteller.
 * Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman, in Booker T. Washington Rediscovered (2012), p. 209

 * He was a thinker rooted in the Bible and Shakespeare, a lover of epigrams, a teller of folksy tales, a prodigious writer, and theatrical in his method of inspiring crowds.
 * Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman, in Booker T. Washington Rediscovered (2012), p. 209

 * Washington performed on the world stage as a moral charismatic leader representing African Americans. Some strongly believe he failed in that role; others believe that he succeeded against the odds. Some believe he was a trickster and self-made man; others firmly believe he was tricked and was a "made-man" by white power brokers. Whatever one's position, it is undeniable that Washington was an influential educational, business, cultural and political leader. He certainly had all the basics of leadership: a vision, a means of implementing the vision, and the enthusiasm of followers.
 * Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman, in Booker T. Washington Rediscovered (2012), p. 210

 * Washington, unlike many other Black leaders of his time was a frequent traveler in the Deep South who knew the conditions firsthand instead of the abstract. Washington was a witness to the violence and racism of Jim Crow in the Black Belt and lived beside desperate poverty and illiteracy. Because of the paradoxical nature of being both a pragmatic realist and a utopian separatist, Washington sometimes expressed conflicting and ambiguous positions on issues.
 * Michael Scott Bieze and Marybeth Gasman, in Booker T. Washington Rediscovered (2012), p. 211

 * Booker Washington is the combined Moses and Joshua of his people. Not only has he led them to the promised land, but still lives to teach them by example and precept how properly to enjoy it.
 * Andrew Carnegie, The Negro in America: An Address Delivered Before the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh, 16th October, 1907, p. 39

 * I have for some years had the pleasure of Mr. Booker Washington's acquaintance, and I share with all those who know the facts the appreciation of the services he has rendered and is rendering to the solution of one of the gravest and most perplexing problems of our time. He is a man who, in every sense, deserves well of his contemporaries, and I believe that, when hereafter the story is written of Christian people's endeavour in our day to atone for and to amend the racial wrongdoings of the past, Mr. Booker Washington's name will stand in the very forefront of those for whom the world will give thanks.
 * Archbishop of Canterbury Randall Davidson, quoted in The Times (October 7, 1910), p. 4

 * So thoroughly did he learn the speech and thought of triumphal commercialism, and the ideals of material prosperity, that the picture of a lone black boy poring over a French grammar amid the weeds and dirt of a neglected home soon seemed to him the acme of absurdities. One wonders what Socrates and St. Francis of Assisi would say to this.
 * W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk (1903), p. 81

 * We are a people born of many peoples. Our culture, our skills, our very aspirations have been shaped by immigrants—and their sons and daughters—from all the earth. Sam Gompers from England, Andrew Carnegie from Scotland, Albert Einstein from Germany—and Booker T. Washington and Al Smith—Marconi and Caruso—men of all nations and races and estates—they have made us what we are.
 * Dwight D. Eisenhower, Address at the Philadelphia Convention Hall (1 November 1956)

 * There is nothing more touching in his book than the passages which record her devotion and her constant endeavor to help him find the way so dark to her. There is nothing more beautiful and uplifting in literature than the tender reverence, the devout honor with which he repays her affection. His birth was a part of slavery, and she was, in his eyes, as blameless for its conditions as if it had all the sanctions. The patience, the fearless frankness, with which he accepts and owns the facts, are not less than noble; and it is not to their white fathers, but to their black mothers, that such men as Fredrick Douglass and Booker Washington justly ascribe what is best in their natures.
 * William Dean Howells, 'An Exemplary Citizen', The North American Review, Vol. 173, No. 537 (Aug., 1901), pp. 281–282

 * What strikes you, first and last, in Mr. Washington is his constant common sense. He has lived heroic poetry, and he can, therefore, afford to talk simple prose. Simple prose it is, but of sterling worth, and such as it is a pleasure to listen to as long as he chooses to talk. It is interfused with the sweet, brave humor which qualifies his writing, and which enables him, like Dunbar, to place himself outside his race, when he wishes to see it as others see it, and to report its exterior effect from his interior knowledge.
 * William Dean Howells, 'An Exemplary Citizen', The North American Review, Vol. 173, No. 537 (Aug., 1901), p. 283

 * His modesty, his patience, his forbearance, are sublime.
 * Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Teachers (1916), p. 215

 * Historical and contemporary judgments affirm that Washington was in reality “a great accommodator.” But to create Tuskegee in Alabama in that era he could hardly have been otherwise. He did create Tuskegee—a splendid achievement—but, in so doing, was in turn almost forced to create of himself an image of national leadership. But in time, he grew to like this image and eventually to take advantage of it, so his enemies claimed, for the exercise of power itself. As a bridge between the white and colored peoples of the United States, he sought and gained more often than not the favors of the white power structure from which came the endowments supporting Tusekegee.
 * Langston Hughes, 'Introduction', Up from Slavery (1965), pp. v–x, quoted in The Collected Works of Langston Hughes: Essays on Art, Race, Politics, and World Affairs (2001), p. 513

 * Before embarking on his illustrious career as an educator and activist, Booker T. Washington, the son of enslaved parents, spent part of his childhood working in the salt furnaces of the Kanawha Salines. "Though I was a mere child, my stepfather put me and my brother at work in one of the furnaces," he explained in his autobiography. "Often I began work as early as four o'clock in the morning." At the time, Washington was nine years old.
 * Kim Kelly (journalist) Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor (2022)

 * For a hundred years since emancipation, Negroes had searched tor the elusive path to freedom. They knew that they had to fashion a body of tactics suitable for their unique and special conditions. The words of the Constitution had declared them free, but life had told them that they were a twice-burdened people—they lived in the lowest stratum of society, and within it they were additionally imprisoned by a caste of color. For decades the long and winding trails led to dead ends. Booker T. Washington, in the dark days that followed Reconstruction, advised them: “Let down your buckets where you are.” Be content, he said in effect, with doing well what the times permit you to do at all. However, this path, they soon felt, had too little freedom in its present and too little promise in its future.
 * Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can't Wait (1963), pp. 24-25

 * The vast majority of Negros are members of or associated with either the Baptist Church or the several branches of the Methodist Church. ... So strong has been their allegiance to these two denominations that Dr. Booker T. Washington used to say, with his characteristic humor, that if ever you discovered a Negro who was not either a Baptist or a Methodist, some white man had been tampering with his religion.
 * Robert Russa Moton, 'The Negro of To-Day', The Times Supplement (July 4, 1921), p. ix

 * It is not hyperbole to say that Booker T. Washington was a great American. For twenty years before his death he had been the most useful, as well as the most distinguished, member of his race in the world, and one of the most useful, as well as one of the most distinguished, of American citizens of any race.
 * Theodore Roosevelt, 'Preface', Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe, Booker T. Washington: Builder of a Civilization (1916), p. ix

 * The race that can produce a Booker T. Washington in a century ought to feel it can do miracles in time.
 * William Howard Taft, speech in Carnegie Hall (February 23, 1909), quoted in The Times (February 25, 1909), p. 5

 * The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they learn their place again.
 * Benjamin Tillman, regarding Booker T. Washington's meeting with Theodore Roosevelt, as quoted in Ben Tillman and the Reconstruction of White Supremacy (2000), by Stephen Kantrowitz. University of North Carolina Press, p. 259

 * What man is a worse enemy to a race than a leader who looks with equanimity on the disfranchisement of his race in a country where other races have universal suffrage by constitutions?
 * William Monroe Trotter, referring to Booker T. Washington's acquiescence to state constitutions that disenfranchised black citizens, Editorial, Boston Guardian, December 20, 1902

 * Silence is tantamount to being virtually an accomplice in the treasonable act of this Benedict Arnold of the Negro race.
 * William Monroe Trotter, referring to Booker T. Washington's acquiescence to state constitutions that disenfranchised black citizens, Editorial, Boston Guardian, December 20, 1902

 * Social equality carries with it civil equality, political equality, financial equality, judicial equality, business equality, and wherever social equality is denied by legislative enactments and judicial decrees, the sequel must be discrimination, proscription, injustice and degradation. ... With all due respect to Prof. Washington personally, for we do respect him personally, he will have to live a long time to undo the harm he has done to our race. His remarks on social equality, which is nothing more than civil equality, will be quoted by newspapers, magazines, periodicals, legislatures, congressmen, lawyers, judges and all grades of whites to prove that the Negro race is satisfied with being degraded, not that the Professor meant it, but such will be the construction given it by our civil and political enemies.
 * Henry McNeal Turner, "Response to the Atlanta Exposition Address," in Voice of the Missions, October 1895

 * I am just as much opposed to Booker T. Washington as a voter as I am to the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon who blacks my shoes every morning.
 * James K. Vardaman, as quoted in The Authentic Voice Time magazine (26 March 1956)

title: Booker T. Washington


text:
Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston (7 January 1891 – 28 January 1960) was an American folklorist and author during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).

Quotes

 * Ah done been in sorrow's kitchen and Ah done licked out all de pots. Ah done died in grief and been buried in de bitter waters, and Ah done rose agin from de dead lak Lazarus.
 * Lucy in Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934), Ch. 6, p. 13

 * Gods always behave like the people who make them.
 * Tell My Horse (1938), Ch. 15, p. 219

 * I accept this idea of democracy. I am all for trying it out. It must be a good thing if everybody praises it like that. If our government has been willing to go to war and sacrifice billions of dollars and millions of men for the idea I think that I ought to give the thing a trial. The only thing that keeps me from pitching head long into this thing is the presence of numerous Jim Crow laws on the statute books of the nation. I am crazy about the idea of Democracy. I want to see how it feels.
 * "Crazy for This Democracy" in Negro Digest (December 1945)

"How It Feels to Be Colored Me" (1928)

 * "How It Feels to Be Colored Me", in The World Tomorrow (May 1928)

 * I am colored but I offer nothing in the way of extenuating circumstances except the fact that I am the only Negro in the United States whose grandfather on the mother's side was not an Indian chief.

 * I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to that sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more or less. No, I do not weep at the world — I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.

 * Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It is beyond me. But in the main, I feel like a brown bag of miscellany propped against a wall. Against a wall in company with other bags, white, red and yellow. Pour out the contents, and there is discovered a jumble of small things priceless and worthless. A first-water diamond, an empty spool, bits of broken glass, lengths of string, a key to a door long since crumbled away, a rusty knife-blade, old shoes saved for a road that never was and never will be, a nail bent under the weight of things too heavy for any nail, a dried flower or two still a little fragrant. In your hand is the brown bag. On the ground before you is the jumble it held — so much like the jumble in the bags, could they be emptied, that all might be dumped in a single heap and the bags refilled without altering the content of any greatly. A bit of colored glass more or less would not matter. Perhaps that is how the Great Stuffer of Bags filled them in the first place — who knows?

Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)

 * ISBN 0-252-00686-0

 * Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board.
 * Ch. 1, p. 9

 * "Well, Ah see Mouth-Almighty is still sittin' in de same place. And Ah reckon they got me up in they mouth now." "Yes indeed. You know if you pass some people and don't speak tuh suit 'em dey got tuh go way back in yo' life and see whut you ever done. They know mo' 'bout yuh than you do yo' self. They done 'heard' 'bout you just what they hope done happened."  "If God don't think no mo' 'bout 'em than Ah do, they's a lost ball in de high grass."
 * Janie and Phoeby, Ch. 1, p. 16

 * Janie saw her life like a great tree in leaf with the things suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone. Dawn and doom was in the branches.
 * Ch. 2, p. 8

 * After a while she got up from where she was and went over the little garden field entire. She was seeking confirmation of the voice and vision, and everywhere she found and acknowledged answers. A personal answer for all other creations except herself. She felt an answer seeking her, but where? When? How?
 * Ch. 2

 * ‘So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he donʼt tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.’
 * Ch. 2

 * There are years that ask questions and years that answer.
 * Ch. 3, p. 21
 * The years took all the fight out of Janie’s face. For a while she thought it was gone from her soul.
 * Ch. 7

 * When God had made The Man, he made him out of stuff that sung all the time and glittered all over. Then after that some angels got jealous and chopped him into millions of pieces, but still he glittered and hummed. So they beat him down to nothing but sparks but each little spark had a shine and a song. So they covered each one over with mud. And the lonesomeness in the sparks make them hunt for one another, but the mud is deaf and dumb. Like all the other tumbling mud-balls, Janie had tried to show her shine.
 * Ch. 9

 * ‘But youʼse takinʼ uh awful chance.’ ‘No moʼ than Ah took befoʼ and no moʼ than anybody else takes when dey gits married. It always changes folks, and sometimes it brings out dirt and meanness dat even de person didnʼt know they had in ʼem theyselves.’
 * Ch. 12

 * All gods who receive homage are cruel. All gods dispense suffering without reason. Otherwise they would not be worshipped. Through indiscriminate suffering men know fear and fear is the most divine emotion. It is the stones for altars and the beginning of wisdom. Half gods are worshipped in wine and flowers. Real gods require blood.
 * Ch. 16

 * The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.
 * Ch. 18

 * "Then you must tell ’em dat love ain’t somethin’ lak uh grindstone dat’s de same thing everywhere and do de same thing tuh everything it touch. Love is lak de sea. It’s uh movin’ thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore."
 * Ch. 20

 * "It’s uh known fact, Pheoby, you got tuh go there tuh know there. Yo’ papa and yo’ mama and nobody else can’t tell yuh and show yuh. Two things everybody’s got tuh do fuh theyselves. They got tuh go tuh God, and they got tuh find out about livin’ fuh theyselves."
 * Ch. 20

 * Of course he wasn't dead. He could never be dead until she herself had finished feeling and thinking. The kiss of his memory made pictures of love and light against the wall. Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.
 * Ch. 20, p. 193

Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)

 * ISBN 0-060-92168-4

 * Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to "jump at de sun." We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.
 * Ch.2 : My Folks, p. 13

 * Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein.
 * Ch. 10 : Research, p. 143

 * If you haven’t got it, you can’t show it. If you have got it, you can’t hide it.
 * Ch. 12 : My People! My People!

 * Love, I find is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.
 * Ch. 14 : Love, p. 203

Quotes about Zora Neale Hurston

 * there certainly have been excellent storytellers and writers within anthropology. That’s one of the reasons I co-edited the book Women Writing Culture (1996) because I was really interested in finding the canon of women writers within anthropology who had written well. Anthropologists like Ella Deloria, Zora Neale Hurston, and Barbara Myerhoff, among others, have been amazing writers.
 * Ruth Behar Interview (2022)

 * I see the "choral" first chapter of Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God as a great exercise in writing multiply, voicing a community.
 * 2006 interview in Conversations with Ursula Le Guin (2008)

 * “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” which I read for the first time only five years ago, and which made me fall in love with Zora Neale Hurston. I was knocked out by her eye for detail, her rigorous use of formal and vernacular languages and the depth of her narrative perspectives. Since then, I’ve read her stories and essays and found her throughout to be an independent thinker.
 * Laila Lalami Interview (2019)

 * Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism. This is particularly true for black women writers who have refused to be delineated by male-establishment models of femininity, and who have dealt with their sexuality as an accepted part of their identity. For instance, where are the women writers of the Harlem Renaissance being taught? Why did it take so long for Zora Neale Hurston to be reprinted?
 * 1982 interview in Conversations with Audre Lorde (2004)

title: Zora Neale Hurston


text:
Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen (2 April 1805 – 4 August 1875) was a Danish author. Although a prolific writer of plays, travelogues, novels, and poems, he is best remembered for his literary fairy tales.

Fairy Tales (1835)

 * They could see she was a real Princess and no question about it, now that she had felt one pea all the way through twenty mattresses and twenty more feather beds. Nobody but a Princess could be so delicate.
 * The Princess and the Pea

 * Far out in the ocean, where the water is as blue as the prettiest cornflower, and as clear as crystal, it is very, very deep; so deep, indeed, that no cable could fathom it: many church steeples, piled one upon another, would not reach from the ground beneath to the surface of the water above. There dwell the Sea King and his subjects.
 * The Little Mermaid

 * We sometimes live to three hundred years, but when we cease to exist here we only become the foam on the surface of the water, and we have not even a grave down here of those we love. We have not immortal souls,because Estelle is a star and we shall never live again; but, like the green sea-weed, when once it has been cut off, we can never flourish more. Human beings, on the contrary, have a soul which lives forever, lives after the body has been turned to dust. It rises up through the clear, pure air beyond the glittering stars. As we rise out of the water, and behold all the land of the earth, so do they rise to unknown and glorious regions which we shall never see.
 * The Little Mermaid

 * "But he has nothing on at all," said a little child at last. "Good heavens! listen to the voice of an innocent child," said the father, and one whispered to the other what the child had said. "But he has nothing on at all," cried at last the whole people. That made a deep impression upon the emperor, for it seemed to him that they were right; but he thought to himself, "Now I must bear up to the end." And the chamberlains walked with still greater dignity, as if they carried the train which did not exist.
 * The Emperor's New Clothes

 * Death continued to stare at the emperor with his cold, hollow eyes, and the room was fearfully still. Suddenly there came through the open window the sound of sweet music. Outside, on the bough of a tree, sat the living nightingale. She had heard of the emperor's illness, and was therefore come to sing to him of hope and trust. And as she sung, the shadows grew paler and paler; the blood in the emperor's veins flowed more rapidly, and gave life to his weak limbs; and even Death himself listened, and said, "Go on, little nightingale, go on."
 * The Nightingale

 * His own image; no longer a dark, gray bird, ugly and disagreeable to look at, but a graceful and beautiful swan. To be born in a duck's nest, in a farmyard, is of no consequence to a bird, if it is hatched from a swan's egg.
 * The Ugly Duckling

 * She again rubbed a match on the wall, and the light shone round her; in the brightness stood her old grandmother, clear and shining, yet mild and loving in her appearance. "Grandmother," cried the little one, "O take me with you; I know you will go away when the match burns out; you will vanish like the warm stove, the roast goose, and the large, glorious Christmas-tree." And she made haste to light the whole bundle of matches, for she wished to keep her grandmother there. And the matches glowed with a light that was brighter than the noon-day, and her grandmother had never appeared so large or so beautiful. She took the little girl in her arms, and they both flew upwards in brightness and joy far above the earth, where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain, for they were with God.
 * The Little Match Girl

 * Every time a good child dies, an angel of God comes down to earth. He takes the child in his arms, spreads out his great white wings, and flies with it all over the places the child loved on earth. The angel plucks a large handful of flowers, and they carry it with them up to God, where the flowers bloom more brightly than they ever did on earth.
 * The Angel

 * Under each arm he carries an umbrella; one of them, with pictures on the inside, he spreads over the good children, and then they dream the most beautiful stories the whole night. But the other umbrella has no pictures, and this he holds over the naughty children so that they sleep heavily, and wake in the morning without having dreamed at all.
 * Ole-Lukøie

 * "I have gone through the most terrible affair that could possibly happen; only imagine, my shadow has gone mad; I suppose such a poor, shallow brain, could not bear much; he fancies that he has become a real man, and that I am his shadow." "How very terrible,” cried the princess; "is he locked up?" "Oh yes, certainly; for I fear he will never recover." "Poor shadow!" said the princess; "it is very unfortunate for him; it would really be a good deed to free him from his frail existence; and, indeed, when I think how often people take the part of the lower class against the higher, in these days, it would be policy to put him out of the way quietly."
 * The Shadow

 * I can give her no greater power than she has already," said the woman; "don't you see how strong that is? How men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. She cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. If she cannot herself obtain access to the Snow Queen, and remove the glass fragments from little Kay, we can do nothing to help her.
 * The Snow Queen, Sixth Story

 * He felt himself melting away, but he still remained firm with his gun on his shoulder. Suddenly the door of the room flew open and the draught of air caught up the little dancer, she fluttered like a sylph right into the stove by the side of the tin soldier, and was instantly in flames and was gone. The tin soldier melted down into a lump, and the next morning, when the maid servant took the ashes out of the stove, she found him in the shape of a little tin heart. But of the little dancer nothing remained but the tinsel rose, which was burnt black as a cinder.
 * The Steadfast Tin Soldier

 * Death walks faster than the wind and never returns what he has taken.
 * The Story of a Mother

 * "I have now learnt to despise you," he said. "You refused an honest prince; you did not appreciate the rose and the nightingale; but you did not mind kissing a swineherd for his toys; you have no one but yourself to blame!"
 * The Swineherd

 * When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower.
 * Thumbelina

 * At rejse er at leve.
 * To travel is to live.
 * The Fairy Tale of My Life

Quotes about Hans Christian Andersen

 * I think many would enjoy and savor the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen much better as adults. I recommend the miraculous translations by Tiina Nunnally.
 * Sandra Cisneros interview (2021)

title: Hans Christian Andersen


text:
Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born 29 January 1954) is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist.

1990's

 * I've been stopped cold from eating another burger!
 * Reacting to guest Howard Lyman's belief that American cattle are at risk for bovine spongiform encephalopathy ("mad cow disease"), "Dangerous Food", The Oprah Winfrey Show (11 April 1996)

 * My reaction is that free speech not only lives, it rocks!
 * On being acquitted of violating Texas' food libel laws in Texas Beef Group v. Winfrey over her "Dangerous Food" episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show (11 April 1996), as quoted in "Oprah: 'Free speech rocks' " in CNN (26 February 1998)

 * I will continue to use my voice. I believed from the beginning that [the lawsuit] was an attempt to muzzle my voice, and I come from a people who have struggled and died in order to have a voice in this country. And I refused to be muzzled.
 * "Oprah: 'Free speech rocks' " in CNN (26 February 1998)

 * I'm still off hamburgers.
 * "Oprah: 'Free speech rocks' " in CNN (26 February 1998)

 * I never think about what I want. It's about what you want to give to other people.
 * As quoted in The Money Adventure (1998) by Egbert Sukop, p. 128

2000's

 * It felt like a new day.
 * After Barack Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic convention, as quoted in "Man of the Moment" at Oprah.com (19 January 2005)

 * I understand why people think we're gay. There isn't a definition in our culture for this kind of bond between women. So I get why people have to label it – how can you be this close without it being sexual?
 * About her friend Gayle King, in "Oprah: Gayle and I Are Not Gay" in People (16 July 2006)

 * What I learned at a very early age was that I was responsible for my life. And as I became more spiritually conscious, I learned that we all are responsible for ourselves, that you create your own reality by the way you think and therefore act. You cannot blame apartheid, your parents, your circumstances, because you are not your circumstances. You are your possibilities. If you know that, you can do anything.
 * O Magazine (January 2007), pages 160 & 217

 * I think that, uh, you know, I'm really happy that the message, or at least some of the message of The Secret is reaching mass consciousness in a way that people realize that they can begin to, uh, positively affect their lives. That's why when I was on the show and said "I've lived this way my whole life", and people who watched our show for years know that I've been talking about how you take responsibility for your life and the choices that you make. Empower your life. And so, when I say that, you know, um, that's how I live my life, the message of The Secret, that's what I mean. I also believe, that, uh, medical healing or healing comes in lots of forms. You know that adage about the guy being lost and God sent him a boat and God sent him — then he gets to heaven and says "Why didn't you help me?" And God's, "I sent you the boat, fool!" So, that's the way I look at medical healing.
 * To Kim Tinkham, who wrote Oprah that she watched her show about The Secret, was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer, and decided to heal herself instead of a mastectomy and chemotherapy that four doctors told her she urgently needed, on The Oprah Winfrey Show (March 2007) · YouTube video

 * What other people label or might try to call failure, I have learned is just God's way of pointing you in a new direction.
 * Oprah's commencement speech at Howard University (12 May 2007)

 * I believe that every single event in life happens in an opportunity to choose love over fear.
 * As quoted in Oprah, in Her Words : Our American Princess (2008) by Tuchy Palmieri, p. 71

 * You want motivation? You still don't understand what our children are up against? Let me read you something that was posted on our message boards from someone who claims to be a member of a known pedophile network. He said this: he doesn't forgive, he does not forget, his group has over nine thousand penises and they're all raping children. So, I want you to know: they're organized, and they have systematic ways of hurting children and they use the internet to do it. These are the predators that are molesting and raping our children. They're trading the photos and videos online, and I want to stress again: this is not about politics, it's about giving the dedicated men and women of law enforcement who are trying to catch these predators the resources they need.
 * 2008, in Oprah Winfrey Show

2010's

 * All the energy that you spend, trying to hurt somebody else, that energy will turn around and slap you in the face. The same thing is true, Love, what I know is that the energy that put out everyday with the best of intentions that it would reach you where you really live in heart of yourself has come back to me from all of you in full force. So that what we've learnt on this show; You are responsible for your life and when you get that, everything changes, my friends. So don't wait for somebody else to fix you, to save you or complete you...
 * "Oprah Winfrey Show Finale" in CBS (25 May 2011)

 * People often ask me: "What is the secret to the success of the show?" "How it lasted 25 years?" I none jokingly say: "My team and Jesus", because nothing but the Hand of God has made this possible for me. For all of you who get railed up when I mentioned God and you wanna know which God am I talking about, I am talking about the same one you talk about, I am talking about the Alpha and Omega, the Omniscience, the Unprecedented, the Ultimate Consciousness, the Source, the Force, the all of everything that is, The One and Only G-O-D, that's what I am talking about...
 * "Oprah Winfrey Show Finale" in CBS (25 May 2011)

 * Well, I don't call you an atheist then. I think if you believe in the awe and the wonder and the mystery, then that is what God is. That is what God is, not the bearded guy in the sky.
 * , quoted in
 * in response to endurance swimmer Diana Nyad saying she can "weep with the beauty of this universe and be moved by all of humanity".

I pay attention to things, you know? … This is to make us all more awakened about our own life, and the fact that it shows up this way is a horror. But, as I heard someone say, seeing people coming together, helping each other — whether it's this crisis we're in or what we saw weeks ago in, in Houston, in Florida, and now in Puerto Rico — it shows the humanity of us all. So, it's an opportunity to show the best of ourselves, when the worst shows up.
 * I feel like my soul is aching for the country. … There's not a day that goes by where I'm not putting on my shoes, or brushing my teeth, where I just think about the ordinariness of, people who just went to a concert, or the ordinariness of the day from people from 9/11, who were just doing an ordinary thing, and then you never get home. … So, I would say that these days of crisis and tragedy are to remind us all to be present in the ordinariness of our lives, that actually turns out to be extraordinary, when the person you love doesn't come home at night.
 * Interview on Entertainment Tonight, as quoted in "Oprah Winfrey Offers Words of Wisdom in Wake of Deadly Las Vegas Shooting", KTVB (2 October 2017)

 * I would say, we can't allow ourselves to be frightened into not living our lives, and I think that we have to keep going and we have to keep going with the faith that thing will get better … And things will get better when we make them better.
 * Interview on Entertainment Tonight, as quoted in "Oprah Winfrey Offers Words of Wisdom in Wake of Deadly Las Vegas Shooting", KTVB (2 October 2017)

 * I had a lot of wealthy men calling, telling me that they would run my campaign and raise $1 billion for me. I am actually humbled by the fact that people think that I could be a leader of the free world, but it's just not in my spirit. . . it's not in my DNA
 * In a 2018 60 Minutes Overtime interview according to Oprah Winfrey reportedly considered running for president with Mitt Romney (October 16, 2023)

2020's

 * [At the beginning of the midterm campaigns,] I said it was up to the citizens of Pennsylvania, but I will tell you all this — if I lived in Pennsylvania, I would've already cast my vote for John Fetterman, for many reasons
 * Oprah rejects her protégé Dr. Oz and backs Democrat John Fetterman in Pa. senate race (November 4, 20222:39 PM ET ASHLEY AHN)

CNN interview (2011)

 * Interview with Piers Morgan (17 January 2011)

 * I know where my lane is, and I know how to stay in my lane. My lane is evolving the consciousness of people.

 * The thing that I do best is "Be Here. Be Now".

 * Turn your wounds into wisdom.
 * OWN Network on "Oprah Winfrey Show"

 * Trust your heart ,and success will come to you.
 * OWN Network on "Oprah Winfrey Show"

 * Surround yourself with people only who are going to take you higher
 * OWN Network on "Oprah Winfrey Show"

“Small Steps Lead To Big Accomplishments”
 * Colorado College Commencement Speech (20th May 2019)

“Everything Is Always Working Out For You”
 * Colorado College Commencement Speech (20th May 2019)

“Failure Is What’s Going To Humble You”
 * Colorado College Commencement Speech (20th May 2019)

“Be Yourself–But Be All Of You”
 * Colorado College Commencement Speech (20th May 2019)

The Path Made Clear: Discovering Your Life's Direction and Purpose (2019)

 * Your life is not static. Every decision, setback, or triumph is an opportunity to identify the seeds of truth that make you the wondrous human being that you are. I'm not talking just about what you do for a living. When you pay attention to what feeds your energy, you move in the direction of the life for which you were intended. Trust that the Universe has a bigger, wider, deeper dream for you than you could ever imagine for yourself.
 * p. 15

 * Growing up in the church, one of my favorite Bible parables was about the mustard seed: If you have faith, even if it's as little as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. Anything is possible. As a child, listening from my seat in church, this brought me so much comfort- just as it did when I was struggling as a reporter in Baltimore and as it still does today.
 * p. 15

 * As you begin to identify the seeds of knowing along your own path, the first question to ask yourself is, What do I believe? Do you believe that you are worthy of happiness, success, abundance, fulfillment, peace, joy, and love? What I know for sure is you become what you believe.
 * p. 16

 * Nourish what makes you feel confident, connected, contented. Opportunity will rise to meet you.
 * p. 188

 * Years ago, I interviewed a grieving mother whose adult son had died after a long illness. You could have heard a pin drop in the studio when she so beautifully told the story of their final moment together. The mother had climbed into bed with her son. She could barely hear him, but her head was on his chest. As he took his last breath, he whispered, "Oh Mom, it is all so simple. It's so simple, Mom." He then closed his eyes and died. I got chills when I heard that. I realized then, just as it resonates with me now: We allow life to get so complicated- when it's really so very simple. From that day forward I resolved to continually ask myself, How am I making things more difficult than they need to be? Your answer to that same question is the next step in your path. It's that simple. Imagine what lies just around the bend. Can you see it? I can. Love, Oprah.
 * p. 189

Quotes about Winfrey

 * She actually is somebody who has the ability to move mountains and change minds.
 * CNN correspondent Dana Bash, as quoted in

 * Oprah is different. Oprah has an army out there that really listens. She's one of the great marketing machines in history.
 * Howard Davidowitz, in "Obama and the 'Oprah Effect': can she sway voters?" at The Christian Science Monitor (10 December 2007)

 * So far, I don't see anything negative on this woman. I think she's a real icon. She's much more complex and complicated than just a talk show host. Maya Angelou has said she sees her as a true missionary. Everybody has a different take on Oprah.
 * Kitty Kelly, in From 'Jackie Oh!' to Oprah: Tell-All Queen Expands Her Empire The Washington Post (14 December 2006)

 * Most great instigators of social change have intimate personal knowledge of trauma. Oprah Winfrey comes to mind, as do Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, and Elie Wiesel. Read the life history of any visionary, and you will find insights and passions that came from having dealt with devastation.
 * Bessel van der Kolk The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (2014)

 * She's — her great strength, if anybody watches the show — and I think everybody does in Iowa; it's the number one show in Iowa — she's instructive. She's empowering. Every time you watch an Oprah broadcast, at the end of it, you know more than you started and you feel stronger. That's her strength.
 * Chris Matthews, as quoted in Matthews described Obama as "almost Third World in his sort of presentation" at Media Matters (3 December 2007)

 * We had a few high-profile moments of our own, including a series of rallies with Oprah Winfrey, who'd become a friend and supporter, and was as wise, funny, and gracious on the trail as she was in person
 * Barack Obama A Promised Land (2020)

 * You have to admire Oprah Winfrey. She is the most powerful woman in the country and comes from a very humble background. The woman has succeeded on talent and energy.
 * Bill O'Reilly, After repeated whining, O'Reilly — who won't have "loathsome" "secular-progressives" on his show — to appear on Oprah at Media Matters (24 October 2006)

 * I am grateful for the contribution Oprah Winfrey has made to our country in regard to reading.

 * The first eighteen years of life profoundly impact your entire life. In the book What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., Oprah shares her story of childhood trauma and how those experiences shaped her. Her mother beat her for even the slightest offense, and this abuse turned her into a people-pleaser. It took years for her to realize that her behavior as an adult was rooted in her experiences as a child.
 * Nedra Glover Tawwab Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships (2023)

 * My own after-school routine included watching The Oprah Winfrey Show. As I've watched old episodes, I realize now that I wasn't ready for the topics, but I certainly needed to hear them. The Oprah show covered abuse, neglect, giveaways, celebrity interviews, and almost every other imaginable subject. Her show gave me the terminology to name things in my life and the lives of others.
 * Nedra Glover Tawwab Drama Free: A Guide to Managing Unhealthy Family Relationships (2023)

title: Oprah Winfrey