Henry Louis Gates Quotes
No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the slave trade. The coast of Acapulco was a black city in the 1870s. And the Veracruz Coast on the gulf of Mexico and the Costa Chica, south of Acapulco are traditional black lands.
Quotes to Explore
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When you like something and you're pretty good at it and you can make a living doing it, you don't ask why. You just count your blessings and go with it.
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Biggie was a lyrical genius: he was a musical painter with words. As he rapped, you would see the picture come to life as you heard his story. You hear a lot of rappers rap; you hear a lot of singers sing, but you don't see the movie in your head the way you do when you hear Biggie rap.
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Do you follow American politics? They hate Obama. Hate him. He's a black man. That's what it is: it's racist. This guy is no bleeding-heart liberal. He's a centrist.
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The music I love listening to is more of the Jack Johnson, Ben Harper, Dido, Jewel, Nora Jones, Joss Stone, a bit more of that organic live-instrumentation feel.
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Without being aware, I think I was being indoctrinated into what was called Vitalism, the idea that what makes life worth living, the good life, consists of accepting challenges, solving problems, discovery, personal growth, personal change.
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Very ambitious startups often take a long time to work - or sometimes they take a very long time to look ambitious.
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Sure I think it is healthy to speak the truth, and be who you are, and be proud of that.
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Nobody wants to read a 600 page book in which the author is fabulous throughout.
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There's usually one piece in 'Vanity Fair' every month that grabs me, but when it presents hatchet jobs without substantiation to impress its liberal friends, I laugh first, then toss.
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Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.
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I can't design anything unless I'm excited by it, meaning I have an urge to wear it.
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You American people worry too much about the China economy. Every time you think China is a problem, we get better, but when you have a high expectation for China, China is always a problem.
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In writing a weird story, I always try very carefully to achieve the right mood and atmosphere and place the emphasis where it belongs.
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I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the ship can be saved, with the cargo, it should never be abandoned. This Union likewise should never be abandoned unless it fails and the possibility of its preservation shall cease to exist, without throwing passengers and cargo overboard.
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Lines 10–16
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The cycle of the machine is now coming to an end. Man has learned much in the hard discipline and the shrewd, unflinching grasp of practical possibilities that the machine has provided in the last three centuries: but we can no more continue to live in the world of the machine than we could live successfully on the barren surface of the moon.
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And as I stumbled onto Eastern philosophy and Buddhism, it was the first time I had ever read any sort of philosophy that really made a tremendous amount of sense. What I liked that was missing from my experience of Christianity growing up was a sort of acceptance, a sort of being OK with being imperfect and not focusing on the sin.
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Because I work with so many people on the east coast, I get some work done before I get the kids up.
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No one in Hollywood really knows what a good idea is before a movie hits the screens. We only know if it's a good idea after it's done.
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And certainly the history of public sculpture has been disastrous but that doesn't mean it ought not to continue and the only way it even has a chance to continue is if the work gets out into the public.
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Errors and exaggerations do not matter. What matters is boldness in thinking with a strong-pitched voice, in speaking out about things as one feels them in the moment of speaking; in having the temerity to proclaim what one believes to be true without fear of the consequences. If one were to await the possession of the absolute truth, one must be either a fool or a mute. If the creative impulse were muted, the world would then be stayed on its march.
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Our entire lives, we're inundated with media and messaging that tells us that to be incarcerated is to be criminal and to be criminal is to be a bad person.
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No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the slave trade. The coast of Acapulco was a black city in the 1870s. And the Veracruz Coast on the gulf of Mexico and the Costa Chica, south of Acapulco are traditional black lands.
