“I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one's weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can't all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something.”

Variant: No one ever told me I was pretty when I was a little girl. All little girls should be told they're pretty, even if they aren't.

Speech at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem, New York (8 September 2000)
2000s, 2000-2004

As quoted in Mother Jones Magazine May-Jun 1991. Vol. 16, No. 3. p. 77 http://books.google.com.mx/books?id=IecDAAAAMBAJ&dq=%22Take+the+first+step+in+faith.+You+don%27t+have+to+see+the+whole+staircase%2C+just+take+the+first+step.%22&q=%22Take+the+first+step+in+faith.+You+don%27t+have+to+see+the+whole+staircase%2C+just+take+the+first+step.%22#v=snippet&q=%22Take%20the%20first%20step%20in%20faith.%20You%20don't%20have%20to%20see%20the%20whole%20staircase%2C%20just%20take%20the%20first%20step.%22&f=false. ISSN 0362-8841.
Context: In Montgomery, Alabama, Jonah and I went to the Civil Rights Memorial, and then we walked around to Dexter Baptist Church and went up into Martin's pulpit. I'd forgotten what a little place it was. We looked out from the little pulpit in that little church and talked about how something so big started from a place so small. Just a lot of committed people of faith in church on one side of the street, and all the power of Alabama in the state capitol right across the street. As a young lawyer, I used to listen to Dr. King in chapel at Spelman College. One of the thngs I liked about him was that he didn't pretend to be a great powerful know-it-all. I remember him discussing openly his gloom, depression, his fears, admitting that he didn't know what the next step was. He would then say: "Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 257

Source: A Burnt Child (1948), p. 257

Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 55 : Go Gently
Context: "Kindness" covers all of my political beliefs. No need to spell them out. I believe that if, at the end, according to our abilities, we have done something to make others a little happier, and something to make ourselves a little happier, that is about the best we can do. To make others less happy is a crime. To make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. We must try to contribute joy to the world. That is true no matter what our problems, our health, our circumstances. We must try. I didn't always know this and am happy I lived long enough to find it out.

Variant translation: If thou shouldst lay up even a little upon a little, and shouldst do this often, soon would even this become great.
Source: Works and Days (c. 700 BC), line 361.

The Abolition of Work (1985)
Context: No one can say what would result from unleashing the creative power stultified by work. Anything can happen. The tiresome debater's problem of freedom vs. necessity, with its theological overtones, resolves itself practically once the production of use-values is co-extensive with the consumption of delightful play activity. Life will become a game, or rather many games, but not—as it is now — a zero/sum game. An optimal sexual encounter is the paradigm of productive play. The participants potentiate each other's pleasures, nobody keeps score, and everybody wins. The more you give, the more you get. In the ludic life, the best of sex will diffuse into the better part of daily life. Generalized play leads to the libidinization of life. Sex, in turn, can become less urgent and desperate, more playful.
If we play our cards right, we can all get more out of life than we put into it; but only if we play for keeps.
No one should ever work.
Workers of the world... relax! </center