Mary McLeod Bethune Quotes

Forgiving is not about forgetting, it’s letting go of the hurt

To those of you with your years of service still ahead, the challenge is yours. Stop doubting yourselves. Have the courage to make up your minds and hold your decisions. Refuse to be BOUGHT for a nickel, or a million dollars, or a job!

Our children must never lose their zeal for
building a better world.

We have a powerful potential in out youth, and we must have the courage to change old ideas and practices so that we may direct their power toward good ends.

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.

Faith is the first factor in a life devoted to service. Without it, nothing is possible. With it, nothing is impossible.

We live in a world which respects power above all things. Power, intelligently directed, can lead to more freedom. Unwisely directed, it can be a dreadful, destructive force.

Knowledge is the prime need of the hour.

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.

Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough.

The progress of the world will call for the best that all of us have to give.

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.

I thought, maybe the difference between white folks and colored is just this matter of reading and writing. I made up my mind I would know my letters.

A woman is free if she lives by her own standards and creates her own destiny, if she prizes her individuality and puts no boundaries on her hopes for tomorrow.

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.

Enter to learn; depart to serve.

I never stop to plan. I take things step by step.