“And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds, And binding with briars, my joys & desires.”

My mother groaned, my father wept,i nto the dangerous world I leapt.

Mercy is the golden chain by which society is bound together.

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is – infinite.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s. I will not reason and compare: my business is to create.

He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars; General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite and flatterer: For Art and Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars.

How can a bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing?

Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

For every thing that lives is Holy.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

What is grand is necessarily obscure to weak men. That which can be made explicit to the idiot is not worth my care.

Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by incapacity.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.

When a sinister person means to be your enemy, they always start by trying to become your friend

The crow wished everything was black, the Owl, that everything was white.

A man can’t soar too high, when he flies with his own wings.

The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.

It’s remarkable how a stereotype functions as an actual trap. How many angry black women have been caught in the circular logic of that phrase? When you aren’t being listened to, why wouldn’t you get louder? If you’re written off as angry or emotional, doesn’t that just cause more of the same?

I’m not black, but there’s a whole lot of times I wish I could say I’m not white.

Be Black, buy Black, think Black, and all else will take care of itself.

I have no desire to take all black people back to Africa; there are blacks who are no good here and will likewise be no good there.

Look for me in the whirlwind or the storm, look for me all around you, for, with God’s grace, I shall come and bring with me countless millions of black slaves who have died in America.

The devil is not as black as he is painted.

My heart goes out to all black people who have been mistreated and feeling like this their entire lives.