Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! True anyhow no matter how many Liars use those words.
I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.
Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.
Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.
Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.
Writing is like travelling. It's wonderful to go somewhere, but you get tired of staying.
I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?
Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.
Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.
Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see That without the dust the rainbow Would not be.
I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.
I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.
The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negroes had but few pegs to fall.
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or does it explode?
Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
Perhaps the mission of an artist is to interpret beauty to people - the beauty within themselves.
Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?
Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.
Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.
Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.
I went down to the river, I set down on the bank. I tried to think but couldn't, So I jumped in and sank.
Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on
The only way to get a thing done is to start to do it, then keep on doing it, and finally you'll finish it.
Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.
Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.
So since I'm still here livin', I guess I will live on. I could've died for love-- But for livin' I was born.
It has seemed to me that most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been.
Hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language.
Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas
How still, How strangely still The water is today, It is not good For water To be so still that way. ~ "Sea Calm
I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
I look at my own body With eyes no longer blind- And I see that my own hands can make The world that's in my mind.
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.
While over Alabama earth These words are gently spoken: Serve and hate will die unborn. Love and chains are broken.
These feet have walked ten thousand miles working for white folks and another ten thousand keeping up with colored.
When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.
We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.
Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.
I loved my friend He went away from me There's nothing more to say The poem ends, Soft as it began- I loved my friend.
A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.
I stay cool, and dig all jive, That's the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.
One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.