Top 15 Quotes & Sayings by Charles W. Chesnutt

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American writer Charles W. Chesnutt.
Last updated on November 8, 2024.
Charles W. Chesnutt

Charles Waddell Chesnutt was an American author, essayist, political activist and lawyer, best known for his novels and short stories exploring complex issues of racial and social identity in the post-Civil War South. Two of his books were adapted as silent films in 1926 and 1927 by the African-American director and producer Oscar Micheaux. Following the Civil Rights Movement during the 20th century, interest in the works of Chesnutt was revived. Several of his books were published in new editions, and he received formal recognition. A commemorative stamp was printed in 2008.

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.
Those that set in motion the forces of evil cannot always control them afterwards.
There's time enough, but none to spare.
Sins, like chickens, come home to roost.
Impossibilities are merely things of which we have not learned, or which we do not wish to happen.
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.
Selfishness is the most constant of human motives. Patriotism, humanity, or the love of God may lead to sporadic outbursts 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 root of life, and heaping up fresh wrongs for other centuries to sweep away.
We sometimes underestimate the influence of little things — © Charles W. Chesnutt
We sometimes underestimate the influence of little things
There are sordid souls that eat and drink and breed and die, and imagine they have lived.
The workings of the human heart are the profoundest mystery of the universe.
I think I must write a book. It has been my cherished dream and I feel an influence that I cannot resist calling me to the task. — © Charles W. Chesnutt
I think I must write a book. It has been my cherished dream and I feel an influence that I cannot resist calling me to the task.
Time touches all things with a destroying hand.
We are all puppets in the hands of fate and seldom see the strings.
Race prejudice is the devil unchained.
We make our customs lightly; once made, like our sins, they grip us in bands of steel; we become the creatures of our creation.
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