Quotes from Charles W. Chesnutt

Those that set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.

As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.

Sins, like chickens, come home to roost.

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.

Time touches all things with a destroying hand.

There's time enough, but none to spare.

As man sows, so shall he reap. In works of fiction, such men are sometimes converted. More often, in real life, they do not change their natures until they are converted into dust.

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.

When it is said that it was done to please a woman, there ought perhaps to be enough to explain anything; for what a man will not do to please a woman is yet to be discovered.

Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen.

Out of what trifles grow the tragedies of life.

She look'd so lovely, as she sway'd   The rein with dainty finger-tips,   A man had given all other bliss,   And all his worldly worth for this,   To waste his whole heart in one kiss   Upon her perfect lips.

Fo' de Lawd!' he say, 'dat mule drunk! he be'n drinkin' de wine.' En sho' 'nuff, de mule had pas' right by de tub er fraish grape-juice en push' de kiver off'n de bairl, en drunk two er th'ee gallon er de wine w'at had been stan'in' long ernough fer ter begin ter git sha'p.

Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do no wish to happen.

Race prejudice is the devil unchained.

Ho imparato a capire che né l'educazione né la cultura cambieranno mai il colore della mia pelle e che dovrò portarmi sempre dietro quello che nel mio paese è un marchio degradante. Se ci penso seriamente, non mi importa molto di questa vita. È l'animale dentro di me, non l'uomo, che vuole evitare la forca.

Those who set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.

Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts which sweep away the heaped-up wrongs of centuries; but they languish at times, while the love of self works on ceaselessly, unwearyingly, burrowing always at the very roots of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.

La vita? Che tipo di vita? Mi hai dato il tuo sangue, i tuoi lineamenti e mi hai dato una madre nera. Povera disgraziata! È morta sotto la frusta, perché aveva troppa dignità come donna per voler vendere l'anima. Mi hai dato uno spirito da bianco, poi hai fatto di me uno schiavo, e lo hai schiacciato.

We are all puppets in the hands of Fate, and seldom see the strings that move us.

When the pride of intellect and caste is broken; when we grovel in the dust of humiliation; when sickness and sorrow come, and the shadow of death falls upon us, and there is no hope elsewhere,—we turn to God, who sometimes swallows the insult, and answers the appeal.

Chesnutt had spent most of his childhood in North Carolina and at the age of fourteen he had become a pupil-teacher at the Howard School, Fayetteville, one of many institutions founded for black students by the Freedmen's Bureau during the Reconstruction era.

I am asking Julius to explain, I said, why his people are so partial to chickens.

Ellis had a strain of thrift, derived from a Scotch ancestry, and a tenacious memory for financial details.