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 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.

A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.

I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.

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.

Above anything else, I hate to lose.

Revenge is the act of passion, vengeance is an act of justice.

Put on the lights there, now. Before we go any further here, has it ever occurred to any of you that all this is simply one grand misunderstanding? Since you’re not here to learn anything, but to be taught so you can pass these tests, knowledge has to be organized so it can be taught, and it has to be reduced to information so it can be organized do you follow that? In other words this leads you to assume that organization is an inherent property of knowledge itself, and that disorder and chaos are simply irrelevant forces that threaten it from outside. In fact it’s exactly the opposite. Order is simply a thin, perilous condition we try to impose on the basic reality of chaos…

Everything intercepts us from ourselves.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Our virtues are dearer to us the more we have had to suffer for them. It is the same with our children. All profound affection entertains a sacrifice. Our thoughts are often worse than we are, just as they are often better.

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.

Art is a jealous mistress; and if a man have a genius for painting, poetry, music, architecture or philosophy, he makes a bad husband and an ill provider.

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.

Breed is stronger than pasture.

We should come home from adventures and perils and discoveries with new experiences and character.

Who can guess how much industry and providence and affection we have caught from the pantomime of brutes?

A chief event of life is the day in which we have encountered a mind that startled us.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

There are nine hundred and ninety-nine patrons of virtue to one virtuous man.

Solitude is impractical and yet society is fatal.