The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: I'm not going to sit at your table and watch you eat, with nothing on my plate, and call myself a diner. Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American. Why, if birth made you American, you wouldn't need any legislation; you wouldn't need any amendments to the Constitution; you wouldn't be faced with civil-rights filibustering in Washington, D. C., right now.
“Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate,
Whose table once a Guest, but not
The second time, is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect,
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn;
Men eat of it and die.”
The Single Hound, p. 257
Collected Poems (1993)
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Emily Dickinson 187
American poet 1830–1886Related quotes
“The light comes brighter from the east; the caw
Of restive crows is sharper on the ear.”
"The Light Comes Brighter," ll. 1-2
Open House (1941)
Age of Bronze, Stanza 3, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“And thou, vast ocean! on whose awful face
Time’s iron feet can print no ruin-trace.”
The Omnipresence of the Deity, Part i, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control / Stops with the shore", Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto iv, stanza 179.
Source: Diet for a New America (1987), Ch. 10: An Ounce of Prevention
A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)
“I am the black crow king,
Keeper of the forgotten corn,
The King!”
Song lyrics, The Firstborn Is Dead (1985), Black Crow King
“For the fame of riches and beauty is fickle and frail, while virtue is eternally excellent.”
Nam divitiarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis est, virtus clara aeternaque habetur.
For the glory of wealth and beauty is fleeting and perishable; that of the mind is illustrious and immortal.
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter I; Variant translation: