role models Quotes

“Perhaps I too might live free. Perhaps I too might wield the same old power that animated the ancestors, that lived in Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Nanny, Cudjoe, Malcolm X, and speak––no, act––as though my body were my own.”

“We prematurely write off people as failures. We are too much in awe of those who succeed and far too dismissive of those who fail.”

“She did not stand alone, but what stood behind her, the most potent moral force in her life, was the love of her father. She never questioned it, never thought about it, never even realized that before she made any decision of importance the reflex, ‘What would Atticus do?’ passed through her unconscious; she never realized what made her dig in her feet and stand firm whenever she did was her father; that whatever was decent and of good report in her character was put there by her father; she did not know that she worshiped him.”

“My father was the model of discipline and courage. Sure, he was stern, and sometimes judgmental, but I always felt like he meant well.”

“I feel that her being is inseparable from my own, and that the footsteps of my life are in hers. All the best of me belongs to her—there is not a talent, or an inspiration or a joy in me that has not awakened by her loving touch.”

“I myself had no idea who I was. I loved my mother yet looked nothing like her. Neither did I look like the role models in my life—my stepfather, my godparents, other relatives—all of whom were black. And they looked nothing like the other heroes I saw, the guys in the movies, white men like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman who beat the bad guys and in the end got the pretty girl—who, incidentally, was always white.”

“Seek out positive people who have achieved the success you want to create in your own life. Remember the adage: ‘Never ask advice of someone with whom you wouldn’t want to trade places.‘”

“White people cannot, in the generality, be taken as models of how to live.”

“Paul is a model of what should be done. He is not a model for how it should be done. Let’s celebrate him. Let’s make sure people are inspired by him. But we can’t say anybody should or could be just like him.”

“Grace looked up and saw a beautiful young ballerina in a tutu. Above the dancer it said: STUNNING NEW JULIET.”

I never knew before that religion was such a cheerful thing. I always thought it was kind of melancholy, but Mrs. Allan’s isn’t, and I’d like to be a Christian if I could be one like her

He helped and comforted me, and showed me that I must try to practice all the virtues I would have my little girls possess, for I was their example.

He certainly did add ‘spirit’ to the meetings, and ‘a tone’ to the paper, for his orations convulsed his hearers and his contributions were excellent, being patriotic, classical, comical, or dramatic, but never sentimental. Jo regarded them as worthy of Bacon, Milton, or Shakespeare, and remodeled her own works with good effect, she thought.

“Don’t be dismal or fret, but do your duty and you’ll get your reward, as good Mr. Brooke has, by being respected and loved.”

Very likely some Mrs. Grundy will observe, “I don’t believe it, boys will be boys, young men must sow their wild oats, and women must not expect miracles.” I dare say you don’t, Mrs. Grundy, but it’s true nevertheless. Women work a good many miracles, and I have a persuasion that they may perform even that of raising the standard of manhood by refusing to echo such sayings.

She always seemed absorbed in work about which there could be no doubt, and so it seemed she could not take interest in anything outside it. It was just this contrast with her own position that was for Kitty the great attraction of Mademoiselle Varenka. Kitty felt that in her, in her manner of life, she would find an example of what she was now so painfully seeking: interest in life, a dignity in life—apart from the worldly relations of girls with men, which so revolted Kitty, and appeared to her now as a shameful hawking about of goods in search of a purchaser.