Claude McKay

Idealism is like a castle in the air if it is not based on a solid foundation of social and political realism.

If a man is not faithful to his own individuality, he cannot be loyal to anything.

Upon the clothes behind the tenement, That hang like ghosts suspended from the lines, Linking each flat, but to each indifferent, Incongruous and strange the moonlight shines.

Nations, like plants and human beings, grow. And if the development is thwarted they are dwarfed and overshadowed.