Let us stop saying 'white Americans' and 'colored Americans,' let us try once and for all saying... Americans. Let human beings be equal on Earth as in Heaven.

You are on the eve of a complete victory. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you.

To realise our dreams we must decide to wake up.

I'm not intimidated by anyone. Everyone is made with two arms, two legs, a stomach and a head. Just think about that.

I shall dance all my life. . . . I would like to die, breathless, spent, at the end of a dance.

You must get an education. You must go to school, and you must learn to protect yourself. And you must learn to protect yourself with the pen, and not the gun.

We must change the system of education and instruction. Unfortunately, history has shown us that brotherhood must be learned, when it should be natural.

The things we truly love stay with us always, locked in our hearts as long as life remains.

A violinist had a violin, a painter his palette. All I had was myself. I was the instrument that I must care for.

Each time I leaped I seemed to touch the sky and when I regained earth it seemed to be mine alone.

I have walked into the palaces of kings and queens and into the houses of presidents. And much more. But I could not walk into a hotel in America and get a cup of coffee, and that made me mad.

What the new mate, sports car, or unexpected check could never do, Christ says, "I Can." You'll love how he achieves it. He reconnects your soul with God.

Back to culture. Yes, actually to culture. You can’t consume much if you sit still and read books.

The happiest adults are those who never buried old toys or abandoned imaginary friends.

Heaven for climate hell for company.

The best practice you can get is on the bandstand, but in between gigs I feel I have to stay in shape.

I always entreat the good Lord to give me my childhood back, that is to say, to grant that I may see nature and render it like a child, without prejudice.

The more people see that they are being understood, they become more motivated to understand your point of view.

Christianity is Christ plus nothing!

Just accepting that vulnerability is part of the deal, I think, makes that part okay.

I sort of feel like music saved my life when I was young. This is the one thing that I knew I was good at.