Claude McKay Quotes

#1. Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted they are dwarfed and overshadowed.

Claude McKay

#2. I have forgotten much, but still remember The poinsiana's red, blood-red in warm December.

Claude McKay

#3. We are like trees. We wear all colors naturally.

Claude McKay

#4. The shivering birds beneath the eaves Have sheltered for the night.

Claude McKay

#5. Adventure-seasoned and storm-buffeted,
I shun all signs of anchorage, because
The zest of life exceeds the bound of laws.

Claude McKay

#6. I know the dark delight of being strange, The penalty of difference in the crowd, The loneliness of wisdom among fools ...

Claude McKay

#7. If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, If we must die, O let us nobly die.

Claude McKay

#8. Human dignity is more precious than prestige ...

Claude McKay

#9. If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

Claude McKay

#10. Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

Claude McKay

#11. And, hungry for the old, familiar ways, I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

Claude McKay

#12. It's when you are down that you learn about your faults.

Claude McKay

#13. If we must die, O let us nobly die.

Claude McKay

#14. Deep in the secret chambers of my heart I muse my life-long hate, and without flinch I bear it nobly as I live my part.

Claude McKay

#15. Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

Claude McKay