Selected Mary McLeod Bethune Quotations
• Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.
• 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.
• We live in a world which respects power above all things. Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom.
• 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.
• If our people are to fight their way up out of bondage we must arm them with the sword and the shield and the buckler of pride.
• 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.
• I do feel, in my dreamings and yearnings, so undiscovered by those who are able to help me.
• For I am my mother's daughter, and 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.
• 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.
• There is a place in God's sun for the youth "farthest down" who has the vision, the determination, and the courage to reach it.
• Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.
• Whatever the white man has done, we have done, and often better.
• You white folks have long been eating the white meat of the chicken. We Negroes are now ready for some of the white meat instead of the dark meat.
• If we have the courage and tenacity of our forebears, who stood firmly like a rock against the lash of slavery, we shall find a way to do for our day what they did for theirs.
• I never stop to plan. I take things step by step.
• Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.
• Cease to be a drudge, seek to be an artist.
• The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.
• From the first, I made my learning, what little it was, useful every way I could.
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About These Quotes
Quote collection assembled by Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection © Jone Johnson Lewis 1997-2005. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote.
Citation information:
Jone Johnson Lewis. "Mary McLeod Bethune Quotes." About Women's History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/mary_bethune.htm . Date accessed: (today). (More on how to cite online sources including this page)
