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
Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that the deities people worship are merely creations of human imagination and not inherently powerful or divine.
In this quote, Langston Hughes reflects on the nature of gods as constructs of human culture, emphasizing that the various representations of deities—whether they are made of ivory, ebony, or diamond-jade—are artificial and ultimately reflect human desires, fears, and aspirations. This perspective invites people to question the authenticity and origin of their beliefs and urges recognition that these 'gods' serve more to represent human struggles than to embody actual divine power.
Themes
GodsBeliefHuman CreationPhilosophyCulture
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the nature of belief systems, one might quote Hughes to highlight how societies create their own gods.
More from Langston Hughes
All quotes →My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.
Langston HughesRead
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.
Langston HughesRead
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 HughesRead
The calm, Cool face of the river, Asked me for a kiss
Langston HughesRead
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.
Langston HughesRead
Similar quotes
We are not to make the Torah into God Himself, nor the Bible into a "paper pope." The Bible is only the result of the Word of God. We can experience the return of the Word of God in the here and now, the perpetual return of the actual, living, indisputable Word of God that makes possible the act of witnessing, but we should never think of the Bible as any sort of talisman or oracle constantly at our disposal that we need only open and read to be in relation to the Word of God and God Himself.
Jacques EllulRead
The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables.
Jorge Luis BorgesRead
I learnt that fame is an illusion and everything about it is just a joke. I'm far more dangerous now, because I don't care at all.
Joe StrummerRead
I think cultures of conformity produce vast quantities of shame, both in people who simply can't conform and people who do conform, but underneath, they're not feeling conformist.
Jonathan FranzenRead
The solution of the problem of life is life itself. Life is not attained by reason and analysis but first of all by living.
Thomas MertonRead
Laurel and Hardy. That's John and Yoko, and we stand a better chance under that guise, because all the serious people, like Martin Luther King, and Kennedy, and Gandhi, got shot.
John LennonRead