I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
Langston HughesRead
I will not take 'but' for an answer. Negroes have been looking at democracy's 'but' too long.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the determination to demand equitable treatment without accepting excuses or compromises.
Langston Hughes emphasizes the need for direct and uncompromising engagement with the principles of democracy. The quote reflects the frustration of African Americans who have long faced systemic barriers and delays in achieving true equality, indicating that mere promises or half-hearted efforts are no longer acceptable.
In practice
During a civil rights gathering to inspire activists, this quote can be used to underline the urgency for true equality.
I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
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.
An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.
The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss
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.
She explained that the bullet had entered through the side of my left eye where there was a scar, traveled eighteen inches down to my left shoulder and stopped there. It could have taken out my eye or gone into my brain. It was a miracle I was alive.
Fear not! Stand your ground... the Lord himself will fight for you; you have only to keep still.
To lose your everyday life of surfing and being creative on waves, enjoying the ocean - that's scary to me. It was essential to at least try surfing again and get out there and see how it went.
As long as you do not feel the serenity in the body, in each and every joint, there is no chance for emancipation. You are in bondage. So while you are sweating and aching, let your heart be light and let it fill your body with gladness. You are not only becoming free, but you are also being free. What is not to be glad about? The pain is temporary. The freedom is permanent.
To avoid an occasion for our virtues is a worse degree of failure than to push forward pluckily and make a fall.
...for the first time in my life, a voice went off in my head:'You have no power over what happens in your life. Drugs dictate exactly what you're going to do. You've taken your hands off the steering wheel, and you're going wherever the drug world takes you.' That had never changed. The feeling would well up inside of me, and no matter how much I loved my girl or my band or my friends or my family, when that siren song 'Go get high now' started playing in my head, I was off.
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