Jackie Robinson

Plenty of times I wanted to haul off when somebody insulted me for the color of my skin, but I had to hold to myself. I knew I was kind of an experiment. The whole thing was bigger than me.

I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

I don’t like needing anyone for anything.

I think if we go back and check our record, the Negro has proven beyond a doubt that we have been more than patient in seeking our rights as American citizens.

I’m grateful for all the breaks and honors and opportunities I’ve had, but I always believe I won’t have it made until the humblest black kid in the most remote backwoods of America has it made.

During my life, I have had a few nightmares which happened to me while I was wide awake.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

The first wealth is health.

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

God is better served in resisting a Temptation to Evil, than in many formal Prayers.

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.

Love of beauty is taste. The creation of beauty is art.

I never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from people.

The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.

Give me insight into today and you may have the antique and future worlds.

In conversation the game is, to say something new with old words. And you shall observe a man of the people picking his way along, step by step, using every time an old boulder, yet never setting his foot on an old place.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude.

It is possible to have a strong self-love without any self-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more intense because one’s own little core of egoistic sensibility is a supreme care.

A nap, my friend, is a brief period of sleep which overtakes superannuated persons when they endeavor to entertain unwelcome visitors or to listen to scientific lectures.