“The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.”

If a nation’s literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays.

A slave is one who waits for someone to come and free him.

With one day’s reading a man may have the key in his hands.

And the days are not full enough And the nights are not full enough And life slips by like a field mouse Not shaking the grass.

Glance is the enemy of vision.

Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.

Man is an over-complicated organism. If he is doomed to extinction he will die out for want of simplicity.

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.

To say that a state cannot pursue its aims because there is no money, is like saying that an engineer cannot build roads, because there are no kilometers.

Music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance, poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music.

If a man isn’t willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he’s no good.

Genius, is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.

The primary pigment of poetry is the IMAGE.

Christ can very well stand as an heroic figure. The hero need not be of wisdom all compounded. Also he is not wholly to blame for the religion that’s been foisted on to him.

Small talk comes from small bones.

The artist is always beginning.

I understand, and not knowing how to express myself without pagan words, I’d rather remain silent.

Thoughts and words form your mental image. And since we become what we picture be sure your thoughts and words express prosperity and blessing rather than poverty and defeat.

I sing to the realists, people who accept it like it is. I express problems. There are tears when it’s sad and smiles when it’s happy. It seems simple to me, but for some people, I guess feelin’ takes courage.

Creating characters is just another way to express a type and put that type to use.

What I’m fighting for now in my work… for an expression relevant to all manner of blacks, poems I could take into a tavern, into the street, into the halls of a housing project.

The present is big with the future, the future might be read in the past, the distant is expressed in the near.

It is difficult for a woman to define her feelings in language which is chiefly made by men to express theirs.

In my judgment an organic machine new to nature never arises, since it always contains an infinity of organs so that it can express, in its own way, the whole universe; indeed, it always contains all past and present times.