Quotes from Mary McLeod Bethune

For I am my mother's daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.

If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander.

World peace and brotherhood are based on a common understanding of the contributions and cultures of all races and creeds

Cease to be a drudge seek to be an artist.

We have a powerful potential in our youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.

We live in a world which respects power above all things. Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom. Unwisely directed, it can be a dreadful, destructive force.

Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.

I do feel, in my dreamings and yearnings, so undiscovered by those who are able to help me.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

I leave you love. I leave you hope. I leave you the challenge of developing confidence in one another. I leave you respect for the use of power. I leave you faith. I leave you racial dignity.

From the first I made my learning what little it was useful every way I could.

Education is the great American adventure, the world's most colossal democratic experiment.

Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.

Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.

The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.

Studying goes deeper than mere reading. There are surface nuggets to be gathered but the best of the gold is underneath, and it takes time and labor to secure it.

I never stop to plan. I take things step-by-step.

I plunged into the job of creating something from nothing. ... Though I hadn't a penny left, I considered cash money as the smallest part of my resources. I had faith in a living God, faith in myself, and a desire to serve.

I have had more than half a century of such happiness. A great deal of worry and sorrow, too, but never a worry or a sorrow that was not offset by a purple iris, a lark, a bluebird, or a dewy morning glory.

Whatever the white man has done, we have done, and often better.

When they learn of Shakespeare and Goethe, we must teach them of Pushkin and Dumas. . . . Whatever the white man has done, we have done, and often better.

Next to God we are indebted to women, first for life itself, and then for making it worth living.

The true worth of a race must be measured by the character of its womanhood.

Whatever glory belongs to the race for a development unprecedented in history for the given length of time, a full share belongs to the womanhood of the race.