I have always thought that foreign-policy idealism has to be tempered with realism.
When a man knows that the abstraction ten exists - nothing on earth can stop him from looking for the fact of eleven.
A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness, as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men - and people in general.
. . . Negroes must concern themselves with every single means of struggle: legal, illegal, passive, active, violent and non- violent. . . . They must harass, debate, petition, boycott, sing hymns, pray on steps--and shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities. . . . The acceptance of our condition is the only form of extremism which discredits us before our children [ellipses in source].
The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.
Though it be a thrilling and marvellous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so - doubly dynamic - to be young, gifted and black.
One cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know and read of the miseries which affect the world.
Those lucky enough to qualify as "intellectuals" have their own special responsibilities, deriving from their good fortune. Among these is the task that [Edward] Said describes, surely an important one.
A profound thought is in a constant state of becoming; it adopts the experience of a life and assumes its shape.
I've always thrown like a girl.
Truth is not over there, wherever over there is. Truth is neither housed in religious rituals nor secret doctrines, nor in a guru's touch or beatific smile, nor in exotic locations or ancient temples. Truth is quite literally the only thing that does exist. It is not hidden but in plain view, not lacking but abundantly present.