“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.”

— Mae Jemison

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.”

— Rosa Parks

“Truth is powerful and it prevails.”

— Sojourner Truth

“The soul that is within me no man can degrade.”

— Frederick Douglass

“We have a wonderful history behind us…and it is going to inspire us to greater achievements.”

— Carter G. Woodson

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”

— Harriet Tubman

“To accept one’s past—one’s history—is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”

— James Baldwin

“For I am my mother’s daughter, and the drums of Africa still beat in my heart.”

— Mary McLeod Bethune

“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”

— Malcolm X

“If I wait for someone else to validate my existence, it will mean that I’m shortchanging myself.”

— Zanele Muholi

“No longer dependent on the things of the world, I felt really free for the first time in my life. In the past I had been like my jailers; I had pursued the goals of capitalistic America. Now I had a higher freedom.”

— Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide

知人者智，知己者明。胜人者有力，胜己者强。

— Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching