Few will have the greatness to bend history itself...

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.

If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in seventy or eighty years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. And that, of course, causes great confusion.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

My notion of a wife at 40 is that a man should be able to change her, like a bank note, for two 20s.

If you're old, don't try to change yourself, change your environment.

Legend: A lie that has attained the dignity of age.

The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.

Every age has its own poetry in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.

I saw no African people in the printed and illustrated Sunday school lessons. I began to suspect at this early age that someone had distorted the image of my people. My long search for the true history of African people the world over began.

Youth is the gift of nature, but age is a work of art.

It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.

Old age is not a matter for sorrow. It is matter for thanks if we have left our work done behind us.

Have regular hours for work and play make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success.