Timothy Thomas Fortune Quotations

Mob law is the most forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that society is rotten to the core.

We are African in origin and American in birth.

Men may be spoiled by education, even as they are spoiled by illiteracy. Education is the preparation of the mind for future work, hence men should be educated with special reference to the work.

The white men of the South had better make up their minds that the blacks will remain in the South just as long as corn will tassel and cotton will bloom into whiteness.

The colored man is in the South to stay there. He will not leave it voluntarily and he cannot be driven out. He had no voice in being carried into the South, but he will have a very loud voice in any attempt to put him out.

I do not inveigh against higher education, I simply maintain that the sort of education the colored people of the South stand most in need of, is elementary and industrial. They should be instructed for the work to be done.

It is not safe in the republican form of government that clannishness should exist either by compulsory or voluntary reason. It is not good for the government and it is not good for the individual.

Our history in this country dates from the moment that restless men among us became restless under oppression and rose against it . . . Agitation, contentions, ceaseless unrest, constant aspiring -- a race so moved must prevail.

The race cannot succeed, nor build strong citizens, until we have a race of women competent to do more than bear a brood of negative men.

Mental inertia is death.

We must learn to lean upon ourselves; we must learn to plan and execute business enterprises of our own; we must learn to venture our pennies if we would gain dollars.

Ours is supposed to be a government in which classes and distinctions melt into a harmonious whole. Until we reach this ideal of government, we will be a distracted, contentious people.