For Better Or Worse, You Must Play Your Own Little Instrument In The Orchestra Of Life

For better or worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life. -Dale Carnegie

The price of your hat isn’t the measure of your brain. -Traditional

No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helps you. -Althea Gibson, in Time, 26 August 1957

"Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas." Jose Marti quotes (Cuban Writer, 1853-1895)

Great things are not done by impulse but by a series of small things brought together. - Vincent van Gogh

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long range risks and cost of comfortable inaction. -John F. Kennedy

Words are nothing but words; power lies in deeds. Be a man of action. -Mali Griot Mamadou Kouyate, Sundiata, An Epic of Old Mali, 1217-1237 A.D.

I know no national boundary where the Negro is concerned. The whole world is my province until Africa is free. -Marcus Garvey, Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey, 1929

Africa is not only our mother, but in light of the most recent science is beginning to appear as the mother of civilization. -Alain Locke, “Apropos of Africa,” Opportunity, February 1924

There are four stages of humankind: Infancy…childhood…adolescence… and absolescence. -Art Linkletter

Age is nectar. -Wole Soyinka, Kongi’s Harvest, 1967

I love America more than any other country in the world, and exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. -James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son, 1955

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America. -Jimmy Carter You cannot legislate attitude. -H. Rap Brown, Die Nigger Die, 1970

Remember, whatever game you play, 90 percent of success is from the shoulders up. -Arnold Palmer’s father

My belief in [Martin Luther King] overcame even my disbelief in America. -Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens, 1983

Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secret of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four c’s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of these is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionably. -Walt Disney

Christians should be ready for a change because Jesus was the greatest changer in history. -Ralph Abernathy, c. 1962

Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy, sweat will get you change. -Jesse Jackson

A slave has no choice. -Egypt

God has given us two incredible things: absolutely awesome ability and freedom of choice. The tragedy is that, for the most part, many of us have refused them both. -Frank Donnelly

"Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive." Jose Marti quotes (Cuban Writer, 1853-1895)

Sonje lapli ki leve mayi ou: Remember the rain that made your corn grow. Haitian proverb

Le yo vle touye chen yo di'l fou When they want to kill a dog they say its crazy. Haitian Proverb

Just when you are having fun, reality sets in. Betty McDonald