I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ...ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind with truth, with the golden sound of the word. But only a few of them heard, only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel. Why do you come here? Why do you? Dress your hypocrisy in black and parade before your God on Sunday. From love--no. For you've shown that your hearts are too withered to receive the love of your divine father. I know why you've come. I've seen it in your faces, Sunday after Sunday. Fear has brought you here. Horrible, superstitious fear. Fear of divine retribution. A bolt of fire from the skies. The vengeance of the Lord and the justice of God. But you have forgotten the love of Jesus. You disregard His sacrifice. Death. Fear. Flames. Horror. And black clothes. Hold your meeting then, but know if you do this in the name of good and the house of God, against Him and His word you blaspheme.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man.... Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the eyes had been those ...of an unsuccessful rapist.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Every time I embrace a black woman I'm embracing slavery, and when I put my arms around a white woman, well, I'm hugging freedom. ...The white man forbade me to have the white woman on pain of death.... I will not be free until the day I can have a white woman in my bed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs... from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is exasperating to see little brown men and little yellow men from the mysterious Orient, and the opaque black men of Africa (t...o say nothing of those impudent American Negroes!) who come to the U.N. and talk smart to us, who are scurrying all over our globe in their strange modes of dress--much as if they were new, unpleasant arrivals from another planet. Many whites believe in their ulcers that it is only a matter of time before the Marines get the signal to round up these truants and put them back securely in their cages.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassad...or's chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In families children tend to take on stock roles, as if there were hats hung up in some secret place, visible only to the children.... Each succeeding child selects a hat and takes on that role: the good child, the black sheep, the clown, and so forth.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Few colors last; with their eternal thirst, time and light suck on them, and they bleach the black doctor's hat until it's grey li...ke a dunce's cap.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »