1897-1966, American Author
Education is a private matter between the person and the world of knowledge and experience, and has little to do with school or college.
Lillian Smith – [Education]
For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into ''the masses.'' And where is the David who can slay this giant?
Lillian Smith – [Masses]
Man, born of woman, has found it a hard thing to forgive her for giving him birth. The patriarchal protest against the ancient matriarch has borne strange fruit through the years.
Lillian Smith – [Men and Women]
Rich folks always talk hard times.
Lillian Smith – [Complaints and Complaining]
The human heart dares not stay away too long from that which hurt it most. There is a return journey to anguish that few of us are released from making.
Lillian Smith – [Grief]
To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open. Man, surrounded by facts, permitting himself no surmise, no intuitive flash, no great hypothesis, no risk, is in a locked cell. Ignorance cannot seal the mind and imagination more surely.
Lillian Smith – [Belief]
To find the point where hypothesis and fact meet; the delicate equilibrium between dream and reality; the place where fantasy and earthly things are metamorphosed into a work of art; the hour when faith in the future becomes knowledge of the past; to lay down one's power for others in need; to shake off the old ordeal and get ready for the new; to question, knowing that never can the full answer be found; to accept uncertainties quietly, even our incomplete knowledge of God; this is what man's journey is about, I think.
Lillian Smith – [Life and Living]
When you stop learning, stop listening, stop looking and asking questions, always new questions, then it is time to die.
Lillian Smith – [Learning]