Rosa Parks

Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray one.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

We shall see but little way if we require to understand what we see. How few things can a man measure with the tape of his understanding! How many greater things might he be seeing in the meanwhile!

Let the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on paper.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Lying has a kind of respect and reverence with it. We pay a person the compliment of acknowledging his superiority whenever we lie to him.

Those that are little, little things suit.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Remember where you came from.

He who has made it a practice to lie and deceive his father, will be the most daring in deceiving others.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

Rare virtues are like rare plants or animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.

He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs as a tree bears apples.

Appearances matter – and remember to smile.