It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture.

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goals to reach.

For nearly a century, the South made itself believe that Negroes and white people were really communicating. So convinced of this were the white Southerners that they almost made the nation believe that they, and only they, knew the mind of the Southern Negro.

Not failure, but low aim is sin.

If what is communicated is false, it can hardly be called communication.

It isn't a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream.