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Quote by Jean Toomer

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The Collected Poems of Jean Toomer

This book includes a selection of Jean Toomer's poetry, offering readers a glimpse into his exploration of racial identity, rural life, and the complexities of the human experience. Toomer's work is celebrated for its lyrical beauty and innovative form, making it a significant contribution to American literature. more

Author

Jean Toomer
Jean Toomer

Jean Toomer was an American poet, born on December 26, 1894, and died on March 30, 1967. His works are known for their concise language and profound emotion, and he is considered an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. more

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“I care not for the theoretical symmetry and impregnable logic of your moral code, I care not for the hoary respectability and traditional mysticisms of your theological institutions, I care not for the beauty and solemnity of your rituals and religious ceremonies, I care not even for the reasonableness and unimpeachable fairness of your social ethics,--if it does not turn out better, nobler, truer, men and women,--if it does not add to the world's stock of valuable souls,--if it does not give us a sounder, healthier, more reliable product from this great factory of men--I will have none of it.”

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Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“... religion (ought to be if it isn't) a great deal more than mere gratification of the instinct for worship linked with the straight-teaching of irreproachable credos. Religion must be life made true; and life is action, growth, development--begun now and ending never.”

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“... so long as woman sat with bandaged eyes and manacled hands, fast bound in the clamps of ignorance and inaction, the world of thought moved in its orbit like the revolutions of the moon; with one face (the man's face) always out, so that the spectator could not distinguish whether it was disc or sphere.”

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“Humanity from the first has had its vultures and sharks, and representatives of the fraternity who prey upon mankind may be expected no less in America than elsewhere. That this virulence breaks out most readily and commonly against colored persons in this country, is due of course to the fact that they are, generally speaking, weak and can be imposed upon with impunity. Bullies are always cowards at heart.”

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“The great, the fundamental need of any nation, any race, is for heroism, devotion, sacrifice; and there cannot be heroism, devotion, or sacrifice in a primarily skeptical spirit.”

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“... while our men seem thoroughly abreast of the times on almost every other subject, when they strike the woman question they drop back into sixteenth century logic. They leave nothing to be desired generally in regard to gallantry and chivalry, but they actually do not seem sometimes to have outgrown that old contemporary of chivalry--the idea that women may stand on pedestals or live in doll houses,... but they must not furrow their brows with thought or attempt to help men tug at the great questions of the world.”

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“... the majority of colored men do not yet think it worth while that women aspire to higher education.... The three R's, a littlemusic and a good deal of dancing, a first rate dress-maker and a bottle of magnolia balm, are quite enough generally to render charming any woman possessed of tact and the capacity for worshipping masculinity.”

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