Jackie Robinson

There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.

No matter how much or how little I knew technically, I was able to get the best out of people I worked with.

I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.

I don’t like needing anyone for anything.

I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me. All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.

This ain’t fun. But you watch me, I’ll get it done.

By the rude bridge that arched the flood,Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,Here once the embattled farmers stood,And fired the shot heard round the world.

What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.

So much of our time is spent in preparation, so much in routine, and so much in retrospect, that the amount of each person’s genius is confined to a very few hours.

If you want the time to pass quickly, just give your note for 90 days.

The right merchant is one who has the just average of faculties we call common sense; a man of a strong affinity for facts, who makes up his decision on what he has seen. He is thoroughly persuaded of the truths of arithmetic. There is always a reason, in the man, for his good or bad fortune in making money. Men talk as if there were some magic about this. He knows that all goes on the old road, pound for pound, cent for cent – for every effect a perfect cause – and that good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

It is not best that we should all think alike; it is a difference of opinion that makes horse races.

The people of those foreign countries are very, very ignorant. They looked curiously at the costumes we had brought from the wilds of America. They observed that we talked loudly at table sometimes. They noticed that we looked out for expenses and got what we conveniently could out of a franc, and wondered where in the mischief we came from. In Paris they just simply opened their eyes and stared when we spoke to them in French! We never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language.

Real love begins when nothing is expected in return.

We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.

Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for receiving discipline.

In this country it is a good thing to kill an admiral from time to time to encourage the others.

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.

Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. Many will read the book before one thinks of quoting a passage. As soon as he has done this, that line will be quoted east and west.