Benjamin Banneker

“The sun is the most glorious of all the luminaries in the heavens.”

“I have long been convinced that if your love for yourselves, and for those inestimable laws which preserved to you the rights of human nature, was founded on sincerity, you could not but be solicitous, that every individual, of whatever rank or distinction, might with you equally enjoy the blessings thereof.”

“The colour of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers.”

“I suppose it is a truth too well attested to you, to need a proof here, that we are a race of beings, who have long labored under the abuse and censure of the world.”

“Sir, how pitiable is it to reflect, that although you were so fully convinced of the benevolence of the Father of Mankind... you should at the same time counteract his mercies, in detaining by fraud and violence so numerous a part of my brethren.”

“Evil deeds are the fruit of evil thinking.”

“I am not under any obligation to believe in that which I do not understand.”

“Never abandon your vision. Keep reaching to further your dreams.”

“...that one universal Father hath given being to us all; and that he hath not only made us all of one flesh, but that he hath also, without partiality, afforded us all the same sensations and endowed us all with the same faculties...”

“Were there no uniforms, there would probably be no armies.”