Not only could you travel upward toward success but you could travel downward as well; up and down, in retreat as well as in advance, crabways and crossways and around in a circle, meeting your old se...
It was unbelievable, but perhaps only the unbelievable could be believed. Perhaps the truth was always a lie.
I had switched from the arrogant absurdity of Norton and Emerson to that of Jack and the Brotherhood, and it all came out the same—except I now recognized my invisibility. So I’d accept it, I’d explor...
I felt that even when they were polite they hardly saw me, that they would have begged the pardon of Jack the Bear, never glancing his way if the bear happened to be walking along minding his business...
His name was Clifton and he was black and they shot him. Isn’t that enough to tell? Isn’t it all you need to know?
At best Americans give but a limited attention to history. Too much happens too rapidly, and before we can evaluate it, or exhaust its meaning or pleasure, there is something new to concern us. Ours i...
And my problem was that I always tried to go in everyone's way but my own.
With all your speechmaking and studying I thought you understood something. But you . . . All right, go ahead. See Norton. You'll find that he wants you disciplined; he might not know it, but he does....
Times are grave and you seem very indignant.
The truth is the light and the light is the truth.
The streets were full of hurrying people who walked as though they had been wound up and were directed by some unseen control. Many of the men carried dispatch cases and brief cases and I gripped mine...
That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their eyes, those eyes with which they lo...
Power doesn't have to show off. Power is confident, self-assuring, self-starting and self-stopping, self-warming and self-justifying. When you have it, you know it.
Nothing ever stops; it divides and multiplies, and I guess sometimes it gets ground down superfine, but it doesn't just blow away.
I'd been so fascinated by the notion, that I'd forgotten to measure what it was bringing forth. I'd been asleep, dreaming.
I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of all I find that I lov...
How could you treat a Negro as equal in war and then deny him equality during times of
Here I had thought they accepted me because they felt that color made no difference, when in reality it made no difference because they didn’t see either color or men … For all they were concerned, we...
Dammit, white folk are always giving orders, it's a habit with them. Why didn't you make an excuse? You're black and living in the South-- did you forget how to lie?
America is woven of many strands; I would recognize them and let it so remain.