Charles W. Chesnutt

“The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe. One moment they make us despair of our kind, and the next we see in them the reflection of the divine image.”

“We are all puppets in the hands of fate, and seldom see the strings.”

“The object of my writings would be not so much to portray the negro as he is, as to portray him as he would be with the same opportunities as others.”

“The rights of the weakest and the poorest and the most despised are as sacred as the rights of the strongest and the richest and the most powerful.”

“It is not a merit to be white. It is not a crime to be black.”

“For a colored man to aspire to be a literary artist was an audacity which would be forgiven only in the event of success.”

“Slavery was a blot on our national history, and the evil consequences of it have not yet passed away.”

“The subtle almost imperceptible differences in class and color, which meant so much in the old regime, were not without their weight in the new.”

“Truth is eternal, but it is not always palatable.”

“The law, like the Sabbath, was made for man, and not man for the law.”

“There is a great deal of human nature in people.”

“The door of opportunity is not always open.”

“The best tribute we can pay to the dead is to live our own lives well.”

“I think I must write a book. It may be a failure, it may be a success; but I can write it, and I will.”