None of us is responsible for the complexion of his skin. This fact of nature offers no clue to the character or quality of the person underneath. – Marian Anderson
A singer starts by having his instrument as a gift from God… When you have been given something in a moment of grace, it is sacrilegious to be greedy. – Marian Anderson
Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman. – Marian Anderson
When you stop having dreams and ideals – well, you might as well stop altogether. – Marian Anderson
Nature is sanative, refining, elevating. How cunningly she hides every wrinkle of her inconceivable antiquity under roses, and violets, and morning dew! Every inch of the mountains is scarred by unimaginable convulsions, yet the new day is purple with the bloom of youth and love. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Progress of Culture”