Langston Hughes Quotes

Quote #1

“Hold fast to dreams,
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird,
That cannot fly.”

Quote #2

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

Quote #3

“Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.”

Quote #4

“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.”

Quote #5

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

Quote #6

“Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.

I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.”

 Quote #7

“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.”

Quote #8

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

Quote #9

“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.”

Quote #10

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

Quote #11

“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.”

Quote #12

“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.”

Quote #13

“Oh, God of Dust and Rainbows, Help us to see. 
That without the dust the rainbow.
Would not be.”

 Quote #14

“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.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.”

Quote #15

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

Quote #16

“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.”

Quote #17

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

Quote #18

“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.”

Quote #19

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

Quote #20

“...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,....”

 Quote #21

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

Quote #22

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

Quote #23

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

 Quote #24

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

Quote #25

“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.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

Quote #26

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

Quote #27

“I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I'm dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.”

Quote #28

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

Quote #29

“Bond selection is primarily a negative art. It is a process of exclusion and rejection, rather than of search and acceptance.”

Quote #31

“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.”

Quote #32

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

Quote #34

“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.”

Quote #35

"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.”

Quote #36

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

Quote #37

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

~ "Sea Calm"

Quote #38

“I dream a world where man
No other man will scorn,
Where love will bless the earth
And peace its paths adorn
I dream a world where all
Will know sweet freedom's way,
Where greed no longer saps the soul
Nor avarice blights our day.
A world I dream where black or white,
Whatever race you be,
Will share the bounties of the earth
And every man is free,
Where wretchedness will hang its head
And joy, like a pearl,
Attends the needs of all mankind-
Of such I dream, my world!”

Quote #39

“America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises—that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumbling say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man. Together we are building our land.”

Quote #40

“Many skeptics, it is true, are inclined to dismiss the whole procedure [chart reading] as akin to astrology or necromancy; but the sheer weight of its importance in Wall Street requires that its pretensions be examined with some degree of care.”

Quote #41

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

Quote #42

“My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now i wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house
My Ma died in a shack.
I wonder were i'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black?”

Quote #43

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

Quote #44

“I wish the rent Was heaven sent.”

Quote #45

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

Quote #46

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

Quote #47

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

Quote #48

“7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.”

Quote #49

“I've been scared and battered. My hopes the wind done scattered. Snow has friz me, Sun has baked me, Looks like between 'em they done Tried to make me Stop laughin', stop lovin', stop livin'-- But I don't care! I'm still here!”

Quote #50

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

Quote #51

“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!”

Quote #52

“I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.”

Quote #53

“Life dosent frighten me at all.”

Quote #54

“Pleasured equally
In seeking as in finding,
Each detail minding,
Old Walt went seeking
And finding.”

Quote #55

“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.”

Quote #56

"My hand is lonely for your clasping, dear;
My ear is tired waiting for your call.
I want your strength to help, your laugh to cheer;
Heart, soul and senses need you, one and all.
I droop without your full, frank sympathy;
We ought to be together—you and I;
We want each other so, to comprehend
The dream, the hope, things planned, or seen, or wrought.
Companion, comforter and guide and friend,
As much as love asks love, does thought ask thought.
Life is so short, so fast the lone hours fly,
We ought to be together, you and I.”

Quote #57

“What happens to a dream deferred?”

Quote #58

“American Heartbreak

I am the American heartbreak--
The rock on which Freedom
Stumped its toe--
The great mistake
That Jamestown made
Long ago.”

Quote #59

“Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.”

Quote #60

“Go home and write / a page tonight. / And let that page come out of you - / Then, it will be true.”

Quote #61

“There is no color line in death.”

Quote #62

“I’s been livin’ a long time in yesterday, Sandy chile, an’ I knows there ain’t no room in de world fo’ nothin’ mo’n love. I know, chile! Ever’thing there is but lovin’ leaves a rust on yo’ soul. An’ to love sho ‘nough, you got to have a spot in yo’ heart fo’ ever’body – great an’ small, white an’ black, an’ them what’s good an’ them what’s evil – ‘cause love ain’t got no crowded-out places where de good ones stay an’ de bad ones can’t come in. When it gets that way, then it ain’t love.”

Quote #63

“Books -where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas”

Quote #64

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

Quote #65

“Life Is Fine"

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.

I came up once and hollered!
I came up twice and cried!
If that water hadn't a-been so cold
I might've sunk and died.

But it was Cold in that water! It was cold!

I took the elevator
Sixteen floors above the ground.
I thought about my baby
And thought I would jump down.

I stood there and I hollered!
I stood there and I cried!
If it hadn't a-been so high
I might've jumped and died.

But it was High up there! It was high!

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

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

Life is fine! Fine as wine! Life is fine!”

Quote #66

“They rung my bell to ask me.
Could I recommend a maid.
I said, yes, your momma.”

Quote #67

“Good morning, daddy!
Ain't you heard
The boogie-woogie rumble
Of a dream deferred?

Quote #68

“I will take your heart.
I will take your soul out of your body
As though I were God.
I will not be satisfied
With the little words you say to me.
I will not be satisfied
With the touch of your hand
Nor the sweet of your lips alone.
I will take your heart for mine.
I will take your soul.
I will be God when it comes to you.”

Quote #69

“You see, books had been happening to me.”

Quote #70

“I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen
when company comes, but I laugh and I eat well, and I grow
strong.
Tomorrow I'll sit in the table when company comes, nobody
will dare say to me "eat in the kitchen" then.
Besides they'll see how beautiful I am and be ashamed.”

Quote #71

“My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”

Quote #72

“To those who lived on the other side of the railroad and never realized the utter stupidity of the word “sin,” the Bottoms was vile and wicked. But to the girls who lived there, and the boys who pimped and fought and sold licker there, “sin” was a silly word that did not enter their heads. They had never looked at life through the spectacles of the Sunday-School. The glasses good people wore wouldn’t have fitted their eyes, for they hung no curtain of words between themselves and reality. To them, things were—what they were.”

Quote #73

“I will not take ‘but’ for an answer.”

Quote #74

“Bow down and pray in fear and trembling, go way back in the dark afraid; or work harder and harder; or stumble and learn; or raise up your fist and strike-but once the idea comes into your head you’ll never be the same again. Oh, test tube of life! Crucible of the South, find the right powder and you’ll never be the same again-the cotton will blaze and the cabins will burn and the chains will be broken and men, all of a sudden, will shakes hands, black men and white men, like steel meeting steel!”

Quote #75

“Lawrence has a wonderful hill in it, with a university on top and the first time I ran away from home, I ran up the hill and looked across the world: Kansas wheat fields and the Kaw River, and I wanted to go some place, too. I got a whipping for it.”

Quote #76

“Good people are not that good. To tell the truth, if I were white, no matter how much I loved Negroes, I doubt that I would submit myself to Jim Crow living conditions just to prove my love.” “Neither would I,” said Simple. “Then you would not be very good, either.” “No,” said Simple, “but I would be white.”

Quote #77

I would liken you
To a night without stars
Were it not for your eyes.
I would liken you
To a sleep without dreams
Were it not for your songs.”

Quote #78

“Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

Quote #79

“For poems are like rainbows; they escape you quickly.”

Quote #80

“I was unhappy for a long time, and very lonesome, living with my grandmother. Then it was that books began to happen to me, and I began to believe in nothing but books and the wonderful world in books — where if people suffered, they suffered in beautiful language, not in monosyllables, as we did in Kansas.”