Whitney M. Young Quotations

Our ability to create has outreached our ability to use wisely the products of our invention.

Stretch your mind and fly.

We create an environment where it is alright to hate, to steal, to cheat, and to lie if we dress it up with symbols of respectability, dignity and love.

The unhealthy gap between what we preach in America and what we often practice creates a moral dry rot that eats at the very foundation of our democratic ideals and values.

Support the strong, give courage to the timid, remind the indifferent, and warn the opposed.

Liberalism seems to be related to the distance people are from the problem.

No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.

The danger is that people may mistake what is basically a change in vocabulary for a change in behavior, practices, and attitudes. While practically all Americans have learned to talk inoffensively, not enough have learned to think differently, nor act positively.

The hardest work in the world is being out of work.

Black is beautiful when it is a slum kid studying to enter college, when it is a man learning new skills for a new job, or a slum mother battling to give her kids a chance for a better life. But white is beautiful, too, when it helps change society to make our system work for black people also. White is ugly when it oppresses blacks-and so is black ugly when black people exploit other blacks. No race has a monopoly on vice or virtue, and the worth of an individual is not related to the color of his skin.