Countee Cullen Quotes

O neglectful Nature, wherefore art thou thus partial, becoming to some of thy children a tender and benignant mother, to others a most cruel and ruthless stepmother? I see thy children given into slavery to others without ever receiving any benefit, and in lieu of any reward for the services they have done for them they are repaid by the severest punishments.

But as well may you, when urging a man up-hill with a heavy load upon his back, and with your lash also upon his back, tell him, that be has nothing to do either with the load or the lash.

The pleasures of the mighty are obtained by the tears of the poor.

… the unhappy Peasant cannot survive in his humble shelter; today pigswill is his only nourishment; what was once lavished on swine is now shared between man and beast. The People ask only for bread; they are even willing to pay for it with the sweat of their brows: at least let them eat it without watering it with tears.

Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich. The pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations

Today's world is very cruel.

I have come to believe that one thing people cannot bear is a sense of injustice. Poverty, cold, even hunger are more bearable than injustice.

While it is very sturdy of comfortable men to point out that life is unfair, the people it is unfair to are not apt to be morally or philosophically elevated by the announcement. If you are going to preach that unfairness is inescapable for some, good sense suggests that you also accept the inevitability of beastly behavior by people who have to carry the burden.

I see myself in all the people in the world who are suffering and who are very badly treated and who are often made to feel that they have no place on this Earth.

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

You see, Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice. It makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties. It doubts our concern. It questions our commitment. Because there is no way we can look at what's happening in Africa, and if we're honest, conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else.

I sleep in peace, even if only in the company of lice, behind bars. The same could not be said of my incarcerators though they sleep in warm beds, next to their wives, in their homes.

I had a very comfortable life, but there were people who spent their life in prison, whose families were destroyed.

Victorian values meant brutalizing people who were often poor.

For every moment of triumph, for every instance of beauty, many souls must be trampled.

If you see oppression of the poor, and justice and righteousness trampled in a country, do not be astounded.

God has always been hard on the poor.

There are two things that one must get used to or one will find life unendurable: the damages of time and injustices of men.

Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.

Can you even begin to fathom the arduous, debasing journey people endure to serve you comfortably in the luxury you are so accustomed to?

Woe to them, that take away the right of the poor.

How fared the Irish artisan—how fared the Irish peasant? Where one pined, as he yet pines, in your beggared cities, the other starves, upon your fruitful soil.

Those who have by an unrighteous power made merchandise of the earth, giving all to some, & none to others, declare themselves tyranicall & usurping.

I cannot believe that human beings live that way.