QUOTES BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

“We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes.”

“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, when his wing is bruised and his bosom sore.”

“I know why the caged bird beats his wing till its blood is red on the cruel bars.”

“We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.”

“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, when his wing is bruised and his bosom sore. When he beats his bars and he would be free; it is not a carol of joy or glee.”

“I know why the caged bird beats his wing till its blood is red on the cruel bars; for he must fly back to his perch and cling when he fain would be on the bough a-swing.”

“What if the wind should rage tonight? Whose shall we see when morning’s light is come? Where shall we turn for shelter, kind and dear? Behold, O Earth, thy children’s innocent faces, kneeling to thee, and for them fatherly, for mother’s grace, O shelter giver, yearning to thee!”

“No bitter word shall release your tongue for the use of a scornful thrust; by secret word you are ever bound, and true in the days of your bitterest wound. To love is to cherish the gift of grace, to humble the heart and take off pride.”

“For thou art all that I have seen, my world when I dreamed of Heaven above, my Heaven when I walked on the earth. Yea, though thou pass unto realms above, thou shalt live in the soul of mine, an immortal beyond the bounds of time, a deathless life born of a death.” “They all shall pass, the fame and the mirth, the flitting joy, the reek and the sigh; only the soul is a thing apart that liveth and loveth eternally.”

“I would not shrink from doing good, nor even from saving from ill, but in the world’s rough toilful ways, untimely kindness can not avail.”

“Where the heat and the wrath of the day is not, where the sands are not fire, where the blinding winds blow not, where the torrent races not, where the land is green, where the sea is blue, where the heaven is clear, where the leaves are leal, where, where, ah, where is that happy ground?”

“This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, sails the unshadowed main, the venturous bark that flings on the sweet summer wind its purpled wings in gulfs enchanted, where siren sings and coral reefs lie bare, where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.” VOETBAL QUOTE

“The quiet grave which not even the wars of a thought disturb, in which the body lies and moulders, and out from which the soul soars on high, the grave shall have no victory.”

“Love’s paths are hard; they are bitter and steep, and the roses grow rough with the briars; away, away with this coward despair, nor cling to the rotting remains of old memories, dead and denied; but leave them alone in the desolate past, a fossil-encumbered and disillusioned crust, a sealed and sorrowful heart of days, and walk the world in a younger life.”

“Never night comes abashed to an altar, when daylight comes golden and blithe, nor morning shrinks pale from the fading moon; for God loves not fear, but peace.”

“A little of life’s best, love, a little and that from thee, and then this turning away from the world and all things but thee!”

“Oh, sweet life, ’tis bitter to lose, but bitterer still not to defy the false and the fatal gods that every sad hope idle with tear seeks to assuage.”

“To thine own self be true, and it will follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”

“Be confident in the goodness of your purpose, ignore the scoffs and slights of fools, and work patiently on, for the uplift of yourself and your race.”

“Hold fast to your dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”

“We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile.”

“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, when his wing is bruised and his bosom sore. When he beats his bars and he would be free; it is not a carol of joy or glee.”

“I know why the caged bird beats his wing till its blood is red on the cruel bars; for he must fly back to his perch and cling when he fain would be on the bough a-swing.”