The oppressed will always believe the worst about themselves.

We believe that an individual must endeavor to assume the universalism inherent in the human condition.

Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.

To educate the masses politically does not mean, cannot mean, making a political speech. What it means is to try, relentlessly and passionately, to teach the masses that everything depends on them; that if we stagnate it is their responsibility, and that if we go forward it is due to them too, that there is no such thing as a demiurge, that there is no famous man who will take the responsibility for everything, but that the demiurge is the people themselves and the magic hands are finally only the hands of the people.

A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.

To speak a language is to take on a world, a culture.

...There are too many idiots in this world. And having said it, I have the burden of proving it.