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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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."”

“It now appears that the negro race is, more than any other, susceptible of rapid civilization. The emancipation is observed, in the islands, to have wrought for the negro a benefit as sudden as when a thermometer is brought out of the shade into the sun. It has given him eyes and ears.”

“The civility of no race can be perfect whilst another race is degraded.”

“Black men built the railroads, not blue eyes.”

“Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?”

“I have seen roses damask'd, red and white, But no such roses see I in her cheeks.”

“O, my lord, You said that idle weeds are fast in growth: The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.”

“The nature of bad news affects the teller.”

“Be to yourself as you would to your friend.”

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

“In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales Of woeful ages, long ago betid”

“This act is an ancient tale new told;And, in the last repeating, troublesome,Being urged at a time unseasonable.”

“For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of kings.”

“Say did you read in the papers about a bunch of Women up in British Columbia as a protest against high taxes, sit out in the open naked, and they wouldent put their clothes on? The authorities finally turned a Sprayer that you use on trees, on 'em. That may lead into quite a thing. Woman comes into the tax office nude, saying I won't pay. Well they can't search her and get anything. It sounds great. How far is it to British Columbia?”

“Prosperity this Winter is going to be enjoyed by everybody that is fortunate enough to get into the poor farm.”

“That's the trouble with our charities; we are always saving somebody away off, when the fellow next to us ain't eating.”

“If ever thou be'st bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shalt find what it is to be proud of thy bondage.”

“And makes me poor indeed.”

“Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,To make my end too sudden.”