Langston Hughes Quotes

“Hold fast to dreams
for if dreams die
life is a broken-winged bird
that can not fly.

Hold fast to dreams
for when dreams go
life is a barren field
frozen with snow.”

“Folks, I'm telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean-
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.”

“I loved my friend
He went away from me
There's nothing more to say
The poem ends,
Soft as it began-
I loved my friend.”

“Life is for the living.
Death is for the dead.
Let life be like music.
And death a note unsaid.”

“The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss”

“Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust,
Not for sale.”

“Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.”

“Dream within a dream,
Our dream deferred.
Good morning, daddy!
Ain’t you heard?”

“There’s a certain
amount of traveling
in a dream deferred.”

“Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.”

“To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only Heaven.”

“So since I'm still here livin',
I guess I will live on.
I could've died for love--
But for livin' I was born.”

“Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records — Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn’t make me not like
the same things other folks like who are other races.”

“Gather up In the arms of your love—Those who expect No love from above.”

“Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the goodness
Be wasted forever.

Out of love,
No regrets--
Though the return
Be never.”

“Negroes
Sweet and docile,
Meek, humble, and kind:
Beware the day
They change their minds!

Wind
In the cotton fields,
Gentle breeze:
Beware the hour
It uproots trees!”

“Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Humor is laughing at what you haven't got when you ought to have it.”

“What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?”

“I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.”

“You are white —
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.”

“The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!”

“I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.”

“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.”

“I stay cool, and dig all jive,
That's the way I stay alive.
My motto,
as I live and learn,
is
Dig and be dug
In return.”

“Though you may hear me holler,
And you may see me cry--
I'll be dogged, sweet baby,
If you gonna see me die.”

“I swear to the Lord
I still can't see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.”

“I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

“… 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 asked you, baby,
If you understood-
You told me that you didn't,
But you thought you would.”

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose”

“Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.”

“Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on”

“Believing everything she read
In the daily news,
(No in-between to choose)
She thought that only
One side won,
Not that BOTH
Might lose.”

“Cheap little rhymes
A cheap little tune
Are sometimes as dangerous
As a sliver of the moon.”

“I do not need my freedom when I’m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow’s bread.”

“How still,
How strangely still
The water is today,
It is not good
For water
To be so still that way.

~ "Sea Calm”

“When a man starts out to build a world,
He starts first with himself”

“LIBERTY!
FREEDOM!
DEMOCRACY!
True anyhow no matter how many
Liars use those words.”

“Sometimes a crumb falls
From the tables of joy,
Sometimes a bone
Is flung.

To some people
Love is given,
To others
Only heaven.”

“Life is a egg you have to be patient and carefull with it or it will brake”

“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”

“I am so tired of waiting.
Aren’t you,
for the world to become good
and beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
and cut the world in two —
and see what worms are eating
at the rind.”

“Most musicians remain poor. But the music that they make, even if it does not bring them millions, gives millions of people happiness.”

“I stuck my head out the window this morning and spring kissed me bang in the face.”

“The past has been a mint Of blood and sorrow. That must not be True of tomorrow.”

“Frosting

Freedom
Is just frosting
On somebody else's
Cake--
And so must be
Till we
Learn how to
Bake.”

“Your explanation depresses me,"" I said.
""Your nonsense depresses me,"" said Simple.”

“The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.”

“O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath —
America will be!”

“When you turn the corner
And you run into yourself
Then you know that you have turned
All the corners that are left.”

“They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed —
I, too, am America.”

“I was so sick last night I
Didn't hardly know my mind.
So sick last night I
Didn't know my mind.
I drunk some bad licker that
Almost made me blind.”

“You talk like they
don’t kick dreams
around downtown.”

“Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.”

“Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.”

“For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay —
Except the dream that's almost dead today.”

“Good evening, daddy
I know you’ve heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred”

“The night is beautiful,
So are the faces of my people.”

“I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

“Why should it be my loneliness,
Why should it be my song,
Why should it be my dream
deferred
overlong?”

“It’s not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I’m what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you.”

“Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain —
All, all the stretch of these great green states —
And make America again!”

“You see, unfortunately, I am not black. There are lots of different kinds of blood in our family. But here in the United States, the word “Negro” is used to mean anyone who has any Negro blood at all in his veins. In Africa, the word is more pure. It means all Negro, therefore black. I am brown. My father was a darker brown. My mother an olive-yellow.”