He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.

I hope that people around the world will be as inspired as I am to step up and to speak out on behalf of girls around the world who struggle to go to school.

Believers, look up – take courage. The angels are nearer than you think.

One man with courage is a majority.

We’re not a fragile people. We’re not a frightful people. Our power doesn’t come from some self-declared savior promising that he alone can restore order as long as we do things his way. We don’t look to be ruled.

You have to develop ways so that you can take up for yourself, and then you take up for someone else. And so sooner or later, you have enough courage to really stand up for the human race and say, ‚I’m a representative.‘

I am my own sanctuary and I can be reborn as many times as I choose throughout my life.

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.

I am impelled, not to squeak like a grateful and apologetic mouse, but to roar like a lion out of pride in my profession.

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

The more you know of your history, the more liberated you are.

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.

We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.

No woman should ever be quite accurate about her age. It looks so calculating.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

Blacks, especially in America, have been raised with a slave mentality – they don’t feel that they have the right to speak as loud as possible.

‚A living dog is better than a dead lion.‘ Judge Douglas, if not a dead lion for this work, is at least a caged and toothless one. How can he oppose the advances of slavery? He don’t care anything about it.

Whether you believe you can do a thing or not, you are right.

Because my dad abused me, I was determined to never let a man tell me what to do. God clearly showed me that I needed to be a submissive wife if I wanted to be effective in ministry. The truth is, if we don’t learn to submit to authority, we won’t ever learn to submit to God.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

We are all of us stars, and we deserve to twinkle.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it… that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.

Political courage is not political suicide.

A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders today – and in fact we have forgotten.

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power and it is to serve people.

I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.

I want people to draw strength from me.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

Fearlessness is not only possible, it is the ultimate joy. When you touch nonfear, you are free.

People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Boldness be my friend.

Fashion is here to help make people look very important. If they have good taste and choose what suits them, I give them options on how they can do that. It’s always sexy, and it’s always with the same result: making women look fantastic.

The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.

A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Oh, yes; you Virginians shed barrels of perspiration while standing off at a distance and superintending the work your slaves do for you. It is different with us. Here it is every fellow for himself, or he doesn’t get there.

I am not interested in picking up crumbs of compassion thrown from the table of someone who considers himself my master. I want the full menu of rights.

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

A good objective of leadership is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those who are doing well to do even better.

I don’t fear anybody… at all.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

I don’t worry about stress. I create it.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.

Don’t be afraid to challenge the pros, even in their own backyard.

One cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

The world’s biggest power is the youth and beauty of a woman.