Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.

Men are generally more pleased with a widespread than with a great reputation.

Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it, and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.