Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.
LANGSTON HUGHESMy seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.
More Langston Hughes Quotes
-
-
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
I am the American heartbreak- The rock on which Freedom Stumped its toe.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Sometimes a crumb falls From the tables of joy, Sometimes a bone Is flung. To some people Love is given, To others Only heaven.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Life dosent frighten me at all.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Keep your hand on the plow. Hold on.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
I wish the rent Was heaven sent.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Reach Up Your Hand… and take a star.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
The rhythm of life is a jazz rhythm
LANGSTON HUGHES -
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
The depression brought everybody down a peg or two. And the Negroes had but few pegs to fall.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Everything there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on your old soul.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
When a man starts out to build a world, He starts first with himself
LANGSTON HUGHES -
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
I am a Negro: Black as the night is black, Black like the depths of my Africa.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
I do not want no pretty woman. First thing you know, you fall in love with her-then you got to kill somebody about her. She’ll make you so jealous, you’ll bust!
LANGSTON HUGHES -
I swear to the Lord, I still can’t see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
A dream deferred is a dream denied.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
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.
LANGSTON HUGHES -
Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
LANGSTON HUGHES