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As for solitary habits, the world is right
in condemning a man who, out of pure affectation
or eccentricity, shuts himself up alone,
loses his friends, and sets society against
him. Those, however, who act in this way
naturally, because their profession obliges
them to lead a recluse life, or because their
character rebels against feigned politenesses
and conventional usage, ought in common justice
to be tolerated. What claim by right have
you on him? Why should you force him to take
part in those vain pastimes, which his love
for a quiet life induces him to shun? Do
you not know that there are sciences which
demand the whole of a man, without leaving
the least portion of his spirit free for
your distractions?" Michelangelo 
A man paints with his brains and not with
his hands.
Michelangelo
Painters are not in any way unsociable through
pride, but either because they find few
pursuits equal to painting, or in order not
to corrupt themselves with the useless
conversation of idle people, and debase the
intellect from the lofty imaginations in
which
they are always absorbed. Michelangelo
If in my youth I had realized that the sustaining
splendour of beauty of with which I was in
love would one day flood back into my heart,
there to ignite a flame that would torture
me without end, how gladly would I have put
out the light in my eyes.
Michelangelo |
A good many observers have remarked that
if equality could come at once the Negro
would not be ready for it. I submit that
the white American is even more unprepared.
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go From
Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967.
Being a Negro in America means trying to
smile when you want to cry. It means trying
to hold on to physical life amid psychological
death. It means the pain of watching your
children grow up with clouds of inferiority
in their mental skies. It means having your
legs cut off, and then being condemned for
being a cripple. It means seeing your mother
and father spiritually murdered by the slings
and arrows of daily exploitation, and then
being hated for being an orphan. Martin Luther
King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos
or Community?, 1967.
When we ask Negroes to abide by the law,
let us also declare that the white man does
not abide by law in the ghettos. Day in and
day out he violates welfare laws to deprive
the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly
violates building codes and regulations;
his police make a mockery of law; he violates
laws on equal employment and education and
the provisions of civil services. The slums
are the handiwork of a vicious system of
the white society; Negroes live in them,
but they do not make them, any more than
a prisoner makes a prison. Martin Luther
King, Jr., The Trumpet of Conscience, 1967. |
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