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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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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
Matter
Dark
Pleased
Self
White
Younger
People
Individual
Express
Fear
Glad
Black
Shame
Skinned
Artist
Artists
Selves
Doesn
Aren
Negro
Without
Create
Intend

More quotes by Langston Hughes

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When I were a young man, I used to play baseball and steal bases just like Jackie Robinson. If the empire would rule me out, I would get mad and hit the empire.
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Hard as I try, daddy-o, I really do not like concert singers. They are always singing in some foreign language.
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I asked you, baby, If you understood- You told me that you didn't, But you thought you would.
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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.
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7 x 7 + love = An amount Infinitely above: 7 x 7 - love.
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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.
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As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from.
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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.
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Like a welcome summer rain, humor may suddenly cleanse and cool the earth, the air and you.
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Democracy will not come Today, this year Nor ever Through compromise and fear.
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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.
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There's a certain amount of traveling in a dream deferred.
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Wear it Like a banner For the proud? Not like a shroud.
Langston Hughes
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Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.
Langston Hughes
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This is the mountain standing in the way of any true Negro art in America - this urge within the race toward whiteness, the desire to pour racial individuality into the mold of American standardization, and to be as little Negro and as much American as possible.
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I swear to the Lord, I still can't see, why Democracy means, everybody but me.
Langston Hughes
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What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
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Words Like Freedom There are words like Freedom Sweet and wonderful to say. On my heartstrings freedom sings All day everyday. There are words like Liberty That almost make me cry. If you had known what I know You would know why.
Langston Hughes
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Harriet Tubman lived to see the harvest.
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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