Quotes about Opportunity

Today is the oldest you've ever been, and the youngest you'll ever be again.

Each of us has... all the time there is. Those years, weeks, hours, are the sands in the glass running swiftly away. To let them drift through our fingers is tragic waste. To use them to the hilt, making them count for something, is the beginning of wisdom.

If anyone were to ask me what I want out of life I would say- the opportunity for doing something useful, for in no other way, I am convinced, can true happiness be attained.

To be a citizen in a democracy, a human being must be given a healthy start.

I feel that the care of libraries and the use of books, and the knowledge of books, is a tremendously vital thing, and that we who deal with books and who love books have a great opportunity to bring about something in this country which is more vital here than anywhere else, because we have the chance to make a democracy that will be a real democracy.

I am not a gifted person. I had only three assets: I was keenly interested, I accepted every challenge and every opportunity to learn more, and I had great energy and discipline.

If you step on other people's necks to get rich, or barter your personal honor, then it is others who pay for your success and you can hardly call it your own. If, however, you build something that is of benefit to other people, give them an opportunity to rise with you on your upward climb, you make a contribution.

You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.

I would like to flood South Africa with black personages of all sorts of persuasions: writers, educators, businessmen, you name it. If you are black and have any clout at all, I would like to see you go to South Africa and look for yourself and come back and try to use the tools that you have at your command to try and help the brothers down there.

My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity.

Sometimes if you jump into something too quickly, you can screw up something that might have been good two years down the road.

We budget quite a bit of money every year in order to assist people who are migrating here, people who are trying to enter into our society and be a part of the American dream.