“We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.”

“What is there to say? Purely and simply this: When a bachelor of philosophy from Antilles refuses to apply for certification as a teacher on the ground of his color. I say that philosophy has never saved anyone. Wren one else strives and strains to prove to me that black men are as intelligent as white men, I say that intelligence has never saved anyone; and that is true, for, if philosophy and intelligence are invoked to proclaim the equality of men, they have also been employed to justify the extermination of men.”

“It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did.”

“Our being is subject to all the chances of life. There are so many things we are capable of, that we could be or do. The potentialities are so great that we never, any of us, are more than one-fourth fulfilled.”

“Among all the diseases of the mind there is not one more epidemical or more pernicious than the love of flattery.”

“It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinion than our own.”

“By refusing to multiply our element, we take the risk of not setting a limit to our field; for it is essential to convey to the black man that an attitude of rupture has never saved anyone.”

“We think of intelligence and perception as taking place exclusively in our brains, but yoga teaches us that awareness and intelligence must permeate the body. Each part of the body literally has to engulfed by the intelligence. We must create a marriage between the awareness of the body and that of the mind. When two parties do not cooperate, there is unhappiness on both sides.”

“You will never forgive anyone more than God has already forgiven you.”

“Yes, he is intelligent. But we must be more intelligent. We must be so intelligent that he does not suspect us of being intelligent at all.”