Harlem Renaissance Quotes

When you read the words of Langston Hughes you are reading the words of a Black Gay man. When you read the words of Alice Dunbar-Nelson and Angelina Weld Grimké, poets of the Harlem Renaissance, you are reading the words of Black Lesbians. When you listen to the life-affirming voices of Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey, you are hearing Black Lesbian women. When you see the plays and read the words of Lorraine Hansberry, you are reading the words of a women who loved women deeply. ~ Audre Lorde

What do we call our Harlem Renaissance? Maybe in the future, it won't be just Latino, maybe it'll be more multi-multi, because, you know, people are such fusions now, of so many different cultures. ~ Sandra Cisneros

To the memory of Vincent Van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, El Greco, and many others who came before me as well as those who will come after. We are one. Thank you. ~ Luther E. Vann

When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers. ~ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying. ~ Langston Hughes

I think there's some great stuff coming. I do feel that. I think we have reached our Harlem Renaissance. ~ Sandra Cisneros

I swear to the Lord,I still can't see,Why Democracy means,Everybody but me. ~ Langston Hughes

When peoples care for you and cry for you, they can straighten out your soul. ~ Langston Hughes

It [the Harlem Renaissance] was a time of black individualism, a time marked by a vast array of characters whose uniqueness challenged the traditional inability of white Americans to differentiate between blacks. ~ Clement Alexander Price

Eric Walrond, handsome, cosmopolitan, and beguilingly enigmatic, may have been the most promising literary talent of the Harlem Renaissance ... James Davis's finely written, beautifully paced Eric Walrond is a major biography of a fascinating figure. ~ David Levering Lewis

We are drawn to the Renaissance because of the hope for black uplift and interracial empathy that it embodied and because there is a certain element of romanticism associated with the era's creativity, its seemingly larger than life heroes and heroines, and its most brilliantly lit terrain, Harlem, USA. ~ Clement Alexander Price

National liberation, national renaissance, the restoration of nationhood to the people, commonwealth: whatever may be the headings used or the new formulas introduced, decolonization is always a violent phenomenon. ~ Frantz Fanon

Development of Western science is based on two great achievements: the invention of the formal logical system (in Euclidean geometry) by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment (during the Renaissance). In my opinion, one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all. ~ Albert Einstein

The beliefs and behaviour of the Restoration reflect the theories of society put forward by Thomas Hobbes in The Leviathan, which was written in exile in Paris and published in 1651. Like many texts of the time, The Leviathan is an allegory. It recalls mediaeval rather than Renaissance thinking. The leviathan is the Commonwealth, society as a total organism, in which the individual is the absolute subject of state control, represented by the monarch. Man - motivated by self-interest - is acquisitive and lacks codes of behaviour. Hence the necessity for a strong controlling state, 'an artificial man', to keep discord at bay. Self-interest and stability become the keynotes of British society after 1660, the voice of the new middle-class bourgeoisie making itself heard more and more in the expression of values, ideals, and ethics. ~ Ronald Carter

The Harlem of my books was never meant to be real; I never called it real; I just wanted to take it away from the white man if only in my books. ~ Chester Himes

We're starting to see a renaissance of investors embracing the idea that scientists can build businesses ~ Ryan Bethencourt

From 143rd Street in Harlem to the center court at Wimbledon is about as far as one can travel. ~ Althea Gibson

I grew up in Harlem. My grandmother was one of the best cooks around, but the first thing she did on Sunday mornings when she started cooking a daylong meal was to take a big block of lard from the back of the refrigerator and throw it into the pan. I know how Hispanics buy their food, and it is not always nutritious. ~ Richard Carmona

Hugs are great, but - better than drugs? Come on. Let me put it to you this way: I never drove to Harlem at 4 a.m. to get somebody to hug me. ~ Artie Lange

Some of the greatest mathematical minds of all ages, from Pythagoras and Euclid in ancient Greece, through the medieval Italian mathematician Leonardo of Pisa and the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler, to present-day scientific figures such as Oxford physicist Roger Penrose, have spent endless hours over this simple ratio and its properties. But the fascination with the Golden Ratio is not confined just to mathematicians. Biologists, artists, musicians, historians, architects, psychologists, and even mystics have pondered and debated the basis of its ubiquity and appeal. In fact, it is probably fair to say that the Golden Ratio has inspired thinkers of all disciplines like no other number in the history of mathematics. ~ Mario Livio

Which women would no longer be the second-rate, unimportant creatures that they were now considered, but the equal and respected companions of men. Indeed, that school garden, now trimly beautiful in its twenty-year-old mellowness, but then recently hewn from the rough surface of the Downs and golden-hedged with tangled gorse and broom, has been for me somehow associated with every past phase of life. There, at the age of sixteen, I first began to dream how the men and women of my generation - with myself, of course, conspicuous among that galaxy of Leonardos - would inaugurate a new Renaissance on a colossal scale, and incidentally redeem all the foolish mistakes of our forefathers. ~ Vera Brittain

You try every trick in the book to keep her. You write her letters. You drive her to work. You quote Neruda. You compose a mass e-mail disowning all your sucias. You block their e-mails. You change your phone number. You stop drinking. You stop smoking. You claim you're a sex addict and start attending meetings. You blame your father. You blame your mother. You blame the patriarchy. You blame Santo Domingo. You find a therapist. You cancel your Facebook. You give her the passwords to all your e-mail accounts. You start taking salsa classes like you always swore you would so that the two of you could dance together. You claim that you were sick, you claim that you were weak - It was the book! It was the pressure! - and every hour like clockwork you say that you're so so sorry. You try it all, but one day she will simply sit up in bed and say, No more, and, Ya, and you will have to move from the Harlem apartment that you two have shared. You consider not going. You consider a squat protest. In fact, you say won't go. But in the end you do. ~ Junot Diaz

Atticus adjusted his glasses as he peered down at the blanket. "Hey, is that the book Nellie told us about?"
Jake's eyes flicked to Olivia's book. "You've got it outside in the sun? Are you out of your minds?"
Amy crossed her arms. "We're being careful."
"It's not about careful, this is a five-hundred-year-old manuscript! You should be wearing gloves - Atticus brought some - and keeping it out of the sunlight."
"It didn't take you long to start barking orders!" Any exclaimed, her face flushing. "But then you always know best, don't you?"
"Somebody has to be mature in this situation," Jake said, his gaze flashing at Ian, who was now intently trying to brush cookie crumbs off his pants.
"True. In that case, we'd rather consult your little brother," Ian said with a smirk. "Medieval manuscripts are his field, am I right?"
"Technically, it's early Renaissance," Jake said.
"Thanks for the correction, my good man. Amy is right - you do know best." Ian slipped his arm around Amy. "She's so perceptive. One of the many things I adore about her."
"It's getting chilly. Why don't we go inside?" Amy suggested brightly as she tried to step out of the circle of Ian's arm.
Ian took the opportunity to rub her shoulder. "You do feel rather cold," he said. "Let's sit by the fire. Jake, since you're so interested in proper handling, why don't you take the book?"
Jake snatched up the book and furiously stomped off toward the house.
"You f ~ Jude Watson

Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within. ~ Jackson Pollock

If I could have picked an era to have lived, I think I would've loved to have been one of Louis XIV's mistresses. They were so fantastic and aristocratic, and they had so much power. And he was such a renaissance man. I think I would've fit into that nicely. ~ Katie McGrath

We don't windsurf in Harlem. ~ Charles B. Rangel

(1) Risk-taking behavior, essential for efforts at innovation, is more widespread in some societies than in others. (2) The scientific outlook is a unique feature of post-Renaissance European society that has contributed heavily to its modern technological preeminence. (3) Tolerance of diverse views and of heretics fosters innovation, whereas a strongly traditional outlook (as in China's emphasis on ancient Chinese classics) stifles it. (4) Religions vary greatly in their relation to technological innovation: some branches of Judaism and Christianity are claimed to be especially compatible with it, while some branches of Islam, Hinduism, and Brahmanism may be especially incompatible with it. ~ Jared Diamond

Glancing round to see that no one was watching, I sniffed at it. The leather binding, soft and supple, was pungent, but it was the pages that interested me. They smelt nourishing, like new-baked bread ~ Linda Proud

Ambivalence and contradiction energize nearly every figure Michaelangelo carved, from the adolescent Madonna of the Stairs onward...But the four allegories atop the sarcophagi raise them to a symphonic crescendo. Each is a battleground of conflicting emotions and motives, in which will and paralysis battle for supremacy. ~ Eric Scigliano

Everybody in mathematics had given up for 100 years or 200 years the idea that you could from pictures, from looking at pictures, find new ideas. That was the case long ago in the Middle Ages, in the Renaissance, in later periods, but then mathematicians had become very abstract. ~ Benoit Mandelbrot

Lucy Mercedes Martinez, my mother, was probably my first mentor. She really tried to take care of me in spite of myself, and in spite of her own struggles with alcohol. She was an immigrant who had never finished school. But she was also a Renaissance woman who read voraciously. She spoke several languages. ~ Richard Carmona

Every era of renaissance has come out of new freedoms for peoples. The coming renaissance will be greater than any in human history, for this time all the peoples of the earth will share in it. ~ Pearl S. Buck

Africa will overcome its current challenges. Onwards, towards the African Renaissance! ~ Dr. Yaw Ansong Jnr

those who have found each other once
will find each other again and yet again ~ Dahi Tamara Koch

A winter ago I had an after-school seminar for high-school students and in one of the early sessions Una, a brilliant fifteen-year-old, a born writer who came to Harlem from Panama five years ago, and only then discovered the conflict between races, asked me, "Mrs. Franklin, do you really and truly believe in God with no doubts at all?"
"Oh, Una, I really and truly believe in God with all kinds of doubts."
But I base my life on this belief. ~ Madeleine L'Engle

I'm finishing my Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance history. ~ Peter Weller

I have repeatedly stressed that we have the knowledge
to reduce hunger and poverty. ~ Gro Harlem Brundtland

The soul exists partly in eternity and partly in time. ~ Marsilio Ficino

Being in Harlem on the night of Barack Obama's election was extraordinary. It was the best street party I have ever gone to, and it felt like the period of American history which began with slavery had ended that evening. ~ Hari Kunzru

It was during the Renaissance that creativity was first seen, not as a matter of divine inspiration, but as a gift of a great learned man to imitate God's ability to create. As Prometheus stole the fire of the Gods and brought it to the mankind, humanity needed to steal the secret of 'creation' from Gods and understand its essence. ~ Natasa Nuit Pantovic

It must be confessed that the English gentleman, especially if he be devoted to field and other sports, is apt to attribute slight importance to mental felicity or learning. I happen to enjoy the system, having suffered much on the continent from people who pretend to be intellectuals when they are not. Yet it is undeniable that a type of civility that excludes or misprises the humanities compares ill with the ideal of the perfectly endowed and developed human being which the Greeks and the best teachers of the Renaissance held as examples for emulation. ~ Harold Nicolson

Asking himself how this had happened and what could be done about it, Peter came to understand that the roots of Western technological achievement lay in the freeing of men's minds. He grasped that it had been the Renaissance and the Reformation, neither of which had ever come to Russia, which had broken the bonds of the medieval church and created an environment where independent philosophical and scientific inquiry as well as wide-ranging commercial enterprise could flourish. He knew that these bonds of religious orthodoxy still existed in Russia, reinforced by peasant folkways and traditions which had endured for centuries. Grimly, Peter resolved to break these bonds on his return. ~ Robert K. Massie

Renaissance Humanism, which under Petrarch's formation and tutelage vindicated the importance of poetry and rhetoric as effectors of an intimate bond between reason and emotion, thought and action, intellect and will. Petrarchan Humanism became the historical force mobilizing thought and letters against the blind impulsiveness of an illusory popular culture and the elitism of the philosophical schools" (Trinkaus, 135). ~ Charles Edward Trinkaus