I have discovered in life that there are ways of getting almost anywhere you want to go, if you really want to go.
Life is a system of half-truths and lies, Opportunistic, convenient evasion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Life often involves navigating through both truths and falsehoods, where people may choose convenience over honesty.
This quote by Langston Hughes suggests that life is complex and often marked by a mix of truth and deception. It highlights the notion that individuals may resort to half-truths and lies as a way to escape reality or to avoid uncomfortable situations, choosing instead to live in a manner that is more opportunistic and convenient. The underlying message reflects the moral challenges people face in their everyday lives, prompting a reflection on the authenticity of their choices and actions.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about personal integrity, one might quote Hughes to emphasize the importance of honesty.
More from Langston Hughes
All quotes βMy 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.
Similar quotes
There is nothing more dangerous than to build a society with a large segment of people in that society who feel that they have no stake in it; who feel that that have nothing to lose. People who have stake in their society, protect that society, but when they don't have it, they unconsciously want to destroy it.
And perhaps beyond those shrouded swells another man did walk with another child on the dead gray sands. Slept but a sea apart on another beach among the bitter ashes of the world or stood in their rags lost to the same indifferent sun.
I guess he'll have to figure out someday that he is supposed to have this dark side, that it is part of what it means to be human, to have the darkness just as much as the light- that in fact the dark parts make the light visible; without them, the light would disappear. But I guess he has to figure other stuff out first, like how to keep his neck from flopping all over the place and how to sit up.
Mass communication--wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued--presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)
It is necessary that every man have at least somewhere to go. For there are times when one absolutely must go at least somewhere!
Man, as the minister and interpreter of nature, is limited in act and understanding by his observation of the order of nature; neither his understanding nor his power extends further.