A Quote by Constance Baker Motley

We knew then what we know now; only exemplary blacks are acceptable.

Constance Baker Motley

Quote Topics

Acceptable Blacks Exemplary Knew Know Now Only Then

Quote Author

Constance Baker Motley
American - Activist
September 14, 1921 - September 28, 2005

Have you come over time to think that you know more now than you did when you were young, know less now than when young, know now there is so much more to know than you knew there was to know when young that it is moot whether you think you knew more then than now or less, or do you now know that you never knew anything at all and never will and only the bluster of youth persuaded you that you did or would?

Padgett Powell

As with many things in life-what we know at 30we wish we knew at 20-what we know at 40we wish we knew at 25and so on. 'If I knew then, what I know now' is the old adage that has been said for generations.

Kim Mitchell

He (Jackie Robinson) knew he had to do well. He knew that the future of blacks in baseball depended on it. The pressure was enormous, overwhelming, and unbearable at times. I don't know how he held up. I know I never could have.

Duke Snider

There is no such thing as an acceptable level of unemployment, because hunger is not acceptable, poverty is not acceptable, poor health is not acceptable, and a ruined life is not acceptable.

Hubert H. Humphrey

There was something unbearable in the things, in the people, in the buildings, in the streets that, only if you reinvented it all, as in a game, became acceptable. The essential, however, was to know how to play, and she and I, only she and I, knew how to do it.

Elena Ferrante

The people who knew me and knew my work and trusted me, they knew then as they do now that I've never fabricated or plagiarized a story. People who know me know I didn't do this.

Jack Kelley

The only thing I knew in the world as a little kid was comedy. And no other kids in my school cared about it at all. There was no one to talk about it with. You know, we're in a geek culture now where comedy is so giant. I'm one of the people that, you know, works on Funny or Die. And there is just a giant culture of comedy nerds. But back then, I was alone, and I had a little confidence about it because I felt like, this is my thing, this is the only thing that only I know about.

Judd Apatow

I like to go back and read poems that I wrote fifty years ago, twenty years ago, and sometimes they surprise me - I didn't know I knew that then. Or maybe I didn't know it then, and I know more now.

Maya Angelou

I think I'm a better actor now. I mean, I really think I know a lot about acting now. But I didn't know a lot about acting then, in 80's, and I never knew how to be myself. I never knew how to relax and just play it from me. I was always trying to deliver a line.

Louie Anderson

I disagree with the prevailing point of view of some black leaders that special treatment for blacks is acceptable.

Clarence Thomas

And I knew then, as I know now, that I still have so much to do.

Stevie Nicks

Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what I was described as for a long, long time; you know, people said I only knew three chords when I knew five.

Leonard Cohen

It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans - those who have sealed the Deal, who aren't beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement .

John Ridley

I know who you are in your heart,' Andres said. 'That's all that matters.' And that was it. That was the moment. Now I knew how I would feel if I ever lost him. That was how you knew love. My mother had told me that. All you had to do was imagine your life without the other person, and if the thought alone made you shiver, then you knew.