It is not light that we need, but fire it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

• If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
• I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.
• Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground.
• America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future.
• We have to do with the past only as we can make it useful to the present and the future.
• One and God make a majority.
• A battle lost or won is easily described, understood, and appreciated, but the moral growth of a great nation requires reflection, as well as observation, to appreciate it.
• The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.
• A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people.
• It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.