An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
LANGSTON HUGHESIf 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.
More Langston Hughes Quotes
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LIBERTY! FREEDOM! DEMOCRACY! True anyhow no matter how many Liars use those words.
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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.
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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.
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Life is a big sea full of many fish. I let down my nets and pulled. I’m still pulling.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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Money and art are far apart.
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Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
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For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn’t write anything.
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Out of love, No regrets– Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets– Though the return Be never.
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Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
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Love is a naked shadow, On a gnarled and naked tree.
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Good morning, Revolution: You’re the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on.
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Cheap little rhymes A cheap little tune Are sometimes as dangerous As a sliver of the moon.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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Folks, I’m telling you, birthing is hard and dying is mean- so get yourself a little loving in between.
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Everything there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on your old soul.
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The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss.
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Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love. I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
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Pleasured equally In seeking as in finding, Each detail minding, Old Walt went seeking And finding.
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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.
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Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.
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I did not believe political directives could be successfully applied to creative writing . . . not to poetry or fiction, which to be valid had to express as truthfully as possible the individual emotions and reactions of the writer.
LANGSTON HUGHES