Jean Toomer

“We learn the rope of life by untying its knots.”

“No eyes that have seen beauty ever lose their sight.”

“Call them from their houses, and teach them to dream.”

“I am not less poet; I am more conscious of all that I am, am not, and might become.”

“Men try to run life according to their wishes; life runs itself according to necessity.”

“Most novices picture themselves as masters - and are content with the picture. This is why there are so few masters.”

“It takes a well-spent lifetime, and perhaps more, to crystalize in us that for which we exist.”

“We do not posses imagination enough to sense what we are missing.”

“The realization of ignorance is the first act of knowing.”

“If you have heard a Jewish cantor sing, if he has touched you and made your own sorrow seem trivial when compared with his, you will know my feeling when I follow the curves of her profile, like mobile rivers, to their common delta.”

“Acceptance of prevailing standards often means we have no standards of our own.”

“People mistake their limitations for high standards.”

“Fear is a noose that binds until it strangles.”

“Talk about it only enough to do it. Dream about it only enough to feel it. Think about it only enough to understand it. Contemplate it only enough to be it.”