Achievement brings its own anticlimax.

Neither on my deathbed nor before will I ask myself such a question. Nature is not an engineer or a contractor, and I myself am a part of Nature.

This life is not such that we ought to complain when it comes to and end for us or for a loved one; rather, we may look back in satisfaction when it has been bravely and honorably withstood.

Although I enjoyed and respected Kipling, Poe, Butler, Thackeray and Henley, I saved my young and loyal passion for Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Langston Hughes, James Weldon Johnson and W.E.B. Du Bois' Litany at Atlanta. But it was Shakespeare who said, When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes. It was a state with which I felt myself most familiar.

I most seriously believe that one does people the best service by giving them some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them.

Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid. Having courage and showing courage means we face our fears.

Although there was always generosity in the Negro neighborhood, it was indulged on pain of sacrifice. Whatever was given by Black people to other Blacks was most probably needed as desperately by the donor as by the receiver. A fact which made the giving or receiving a rich exchange.

The real goal of my research has always been the simplification and unification of the system of theoretical physics.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

You do your best until you know better, then you do better.