Lillian Smith

Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.

The lack of belief is a defect that ought to be concealed when it cannot be overcome.

To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open.

We need not feel ashamed of flirting with the zodiac. The zodiac is well worth flirting with.

The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making.

Man, born of woman, has found it a hard thing to forgive her for giving him birth. The patriarchal protest against the ancient matriarch has borne strange fruit through the years.

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.

Segregation is evil; there is no pattern of life which can dehumanize men as can the way of segregation.

Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve.

Rich folks always talk hard times.

When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die.