Langston Hughes: Quotes about people

Langston Hughes was American writer and social activist. Explore interesting quotes on people.
Langston Hughes: 158 quotes22 likes

“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!”

Langston Hughes

Let America Be America Again (1935)
Context: Sure, call me any ugly name you choose —
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!

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

Langston Hughes

Source: The Collected Poems

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

Langston Hughes

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

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

Langston Hughes

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

Langston Hughes

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

Langston Hughes

"My People," in the magazine Poems in Crisis (October 1923); reprinted in The Weary Blues (1926)

“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!”

Langston Hughes

Let America Be America Again (1935)