Langston hughes quotes

A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.

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.

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.

Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.

I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.

Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

But there are certain very practical things American Negro writers can do. And must do. There's a song that says, "the time ain't long." That song is right. Something has got to change in America-and change soon. We must help that change to come.

When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself

There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.

When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul.

It's such a Bore Being always Poor.

There is no color line in art.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? ... Or does it explode?

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see That without the dust the rainbow Would not be.

Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear.

I will not take "but" for an answer.

If you want to honor me, give some young boy or girl who's coming along trying to create arts and write and compose and sing and act and paint and dance and make something out of the beauties of the Negro race-give that child some help.

I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

Believing everything she read In the daily news, (No in-between to choose) She thought that only One side won, Not that BOTH Might lose.

Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Reach Up Your Hand... and take a star.

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on

Americans of good-will, the nice decent church people, the well-meaning liberals, the good hearted souls who themselves wouldn't lynch anyone, must begin to realize that they have to be more than passively good-hearted, more than church goingly Christian, and much more than word-of-mouth in the liberalism.

Money and art are far apart.

Anyday, one can walk down the street in a big city and see a thousand people. Any photographer can photograph these people - but very few photographers can make their prints not only reproductions of the people taken, but a comment upon them - or more, a comment upon their lives - or more still, a comment upon the social order that creates these lives.

Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.

Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop--you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.

An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.

Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.

It has seemed to me that most people are generally good, in every race and in every country where I have been.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?

Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.

Everything there is but lovin' leaves a rust on your old soul

I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.

The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss

For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.

Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I'm still pulling.

Blues had the pulse beat of the people who keep on going.

Life dosent frighten me at all.

Well, when Christ comes back this time, I hope He comes back mad His own self. I hope He drives the Jim Crowers out of their high places, every living last one of them from Washington to Texas.

Life is an egg you have to be patient and careful with it or it will break.

Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.

I, too, sing America. I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen When company comes, But I laugh, And eat well, And grow strong. Tomorrow, I'll be at the table When company comes. Nobody'll dare Say to me, "Eat in the kitchen," Then. Besides, They'll see how beautiful I am And be ashamed-- I, too, am America.

Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.

Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

They [the police] learned something from them Harlem riots. They used to beat your head right in public, but now they only beat it after they get you down to the station house.

The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night And I love the rain.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.

The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.

I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.

Peace We passed their graves: The dead men there, Winners or losers, Did not care. In the dark They could not see Who had gained The victory.

Let America be America again. Let it be the dream it used to be.

When you turn the corner And you run into yourself Then you know that you have turned All the corners that are left.

I wish the rent Was heaven sent.

LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! True anyhow no matter how many Liars use those words.

One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.

Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing You do not know I die?

Melting pot Harlem-Harlem of honey and chocolate and caramel and rum and vinegar and lemon and lime and gall. Dusky dream Harlem rumbling into a nightmare tunnel where the subway from the Bronx keeps right on downtown.

Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.

The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negroes had but few pegs to fall.

Teach us all to do right, Lord, please, and to get along together with that atom bomb on this earth because I do not want it to fall on me-nor Thee-nor anybody living. Amen!

Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Whiskey just naturally likes me but beer likes me better.

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.

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I've known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.

Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.

Through my grandmother's stories always life moved, moved heroically toward an end. Nobody ever cried in my grandmother's stories. They worked, or schemed, or fought. But no crying. When my grandmother died, I didn't cry, either. Something about my grandmother's stories (without her ever having said so) taught me the uselessness of crying about anything."

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.

Hang yourself, poet, in your own words. Otherwise, you are dead.

That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we black are wise: Her bandage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes.

I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

What happens to a dream deferred?

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, We, the people, must redeem The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. The mountains and the endless plain-- All, all the stretch of these great green states-- And make America again!

How still, How strangely still The water is today, It is not good For water To be so still that way. ~ "Sea Calm

Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed - Let it be that great strong land of love Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.

Gather out of star-dust, Earth-dust, Cloud-dust, Storm-dust, And splinters of hail, One handful of dream-dust, Not for sale.

I got the Weary Blues And I can't be satisfied.

There is no color line in death. I swear to the lord I still can't see Why Democracy means Everybody but me. O, yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me, And yet I swear this oath - America will be! I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.

Gather quickly Out of darkness All the songs you know And throw them at the sun Before they melt Like snow.

Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.

O, let my land be a land where Liberty Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, But opportunity is real, and life is free, Equality is in the air we breathe.

A dog gets lonesome just like a human. He wants to associate with other dogs, but when they take him out, the poor dog is on a leash and cannot run around.

Misery is when you heard on the radio that the neighborhood you live in is a slum but you always thought it was home.

When poems stop talking about the moon and begin to mention poverty, trade unions, color, color lines and colonies, somebody tells the police.

Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.

America never was America to me And yet I swear this oath - America will be!

Humor is when the joke's on you but hits the other fellow first -- before it boomerangs.

Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.

7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.

I'm so tired of waiting, aren't you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?

Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.

Looks like what drives me crazy Don't have no effect on you-- But I'm gonna keep on at it Till it drives you crazy, too.

Let America be America, where equality is in the air we breathe.

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby. The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk. The rain makes running pools in the gutter. The rain plays a little sellp-song on our roof at night- And I love the rain.

We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves.

Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.

I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.

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.

For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.

I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.

I dream a world... where wretchedness will hang its head and joy, like a pearl, attends the needs of all mankind. Of such I dream, my world!

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.

Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it ... what you wish in your secret heart were not funny, but it is, and you must laugh. Humor is your own unconscious therapy. Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air, and you.

Rest at pale evening... A tall slim tree... Night coming tenderly Black like me

Both of them were very good and kind - the one who went to church and the one who didn't. And no doubt from them I learned to like both Christians and sinners equally well.

Folks, I'm telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.

I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!

The rhythm of life is a jazz rhythm

Road's in front o' me, Nothin' to do but walk.

A picture, to be an interesting picture, must be more than a picture, otherwise it is only a reproduction of an object, and not an object of value in itself.

I don't dare start thinking in the morning. I don't dare start thinking in the morning. If I thought thoughts in bed, Them thoughts would bust my head-- So I don't dare start thinking in the morning.

I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I know, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.

I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes, but I laugh, and eat well, and grow strong.

Well, son, I'll tell you: Life for me ain't been no crystal stair. It's had tacks in it, And splinters, And boards torn up, And places with no carpet on the floor -- Bare. But all the time I'se been a-climbin' on, And reachin' landin's, And turnin' corners, And sometimes goin' in the dark Where there ain't been no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you set down on the steps 'Cause you finds it's kinder hard. Don't you fall now -- For I'se still goin', honey, I'se still climbin', And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

A dream deferred is a dream denied.