We will be able to depart this life with the quiet peace-giving notion, that we were permitted to contribute to the happiness of many who will live after us. In our long lives we endeavored to unfold the collective consciousness. In our lives we have known hell and heaven; the final balance, however, is that we helped pave the way to dynamic harmony in this earthly house. That, I believe, is the meaning of life.

Ever since I realized there waz someone callt/ a colored girl an evil woman a bitch or a nag/ i been tryin not to be that & leave bitterness/ in somebody else's cup...

At any given moment, your circumstances can change. You may not be where you want to be right now. You may not even be doing what you prefer to do. But, if you change your way of thinking and realize that you have all the opportunities available to you just like each one of us. You can begin to focus on what you want to achieve and make it happen

One minute you've got a lucky star watching over you and the next instant it's done a bunk.

Happiness does not come from a job. It comes from knowing what you truly value, and behaving in a way that__ consistent with those beliefs.

As one 1935 study put it, boys and girls who were 15 or 16 in 1929 when the Depression began are no longer children; they are grown-ups _ adults who had never, since they left school, had anything productive to do; adults in the embittered by years of suffering and hardship. The President's Advisory Commission on Education was to warn of a whole lost generation of young people.