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

Langston Hughes

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Langston Hughes
Age: 66 †
Born: 1901
Born: February 1
Died: 1967
Died: May 22
Biographer
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Playwright
Poet
Writer
Joplin
Missouri
James Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes
Never
Choose
Free
Artist
Inspirational
Also
Doe
Might
Certainly
Must
Afraid

More quotes by Langston Hughes

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Negroes - Sweet and docile, Meek, humble, and kind: Beware the day - They change their mind.
Langston Hughes
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We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they aren?t it doesn?t matter.
Langston Hughes
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Though you may hear me holler, And you may see me cry-- I'll be dogged, sweet baby, If you gonna see me die.
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Never look for a worm in the apple of your eye.
Langston Hughes
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Politics in any country in the world is dangerous. For the poet, politics in any country had better be disguised as poetry. Politics can be the graveyard of the poet. And only poetry can be his resurrection.
Langston Hughes
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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.
Langston Hughes
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This morning I paid seventy cents for two little old dried-up slivers of bacon and one cockeyed egg. It took me till noon to get my appetite back.
Langston Hughes
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Out of love, No regrets-- Though the goodness Be wasted forever. Out of love, No regrets-- Though the return Be never.
Langston Hughes
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Frosting Freedom Is just frosting On somebody else's Cake-- And so must be Till we Learn how to Bake.
Langston Hughes
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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.
Langston Hughes
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Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.
Langston Hughes
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Good morning, Revolution: You're the very best friend I ever had. We gonna pal around together from now on
Langston Hughes
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Because my mouth Is wide with laughter And my throat Is deep with song, You do not think I suffer after I have held my pain So long? Because my mouth Is wide with laughter You do not hear My inner cry? Because my feet Are gay with dancing You do not know I die?
Langston Hughes
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It is the duty of the younger Negro artist . . . to change through the force of his art that old whispering I want to be white, hidden in the aspirations of his people, to Why should I want to be white? I am a Negro - and beautiful!
Langston Hughes
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Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
Langston Hughes
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For my best poems were all written when I felt the worst. When I was happy, I didn't write anything.
Langston Hughes
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I will not take but for an answer.
Langston Hughes
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Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear.
Langston Hughes
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I felt very bad in Washington. . . I didn't like my job, and I didn't know what was going to happen to me, and I was cold and half-hungry, so I wrote a great many poems.
Langston Hughes
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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.
Langston Hughes