Anna Julia Cooper Quotes

If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.

No stream rises higher than its source

I am bigger than the box I'm in.

You can only do so much theatre.

A pint can't hold a quart - if it holds a pint it is doing all that can be expected of it.

Rivers neede a spring.

You must have a capacity to receive, or even omnipotence can't give.

The shell must break before the bird can fly.

There can be many bars, wires that keep a person trapped. All of them don't have to have been created for the purpose of harming or caging the bird, but they still serve that function.

This is the sacrifice: the endless possibility that is offered up on the altar of the form.

However, one cannot put a quart in a pint cup.

There must be some limit to the thing. It cannot go on to infinity.

The element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate, is known to us as limitation. Whatever limits us, we callFate.

A dim capacity for wings demeans the dress I wear.

One can only pour out of a jug that which is in it.

The stream is always purer at its source.

I'm a tulip in a cup. I stand no chance of growing up

You wear your honor like a suit of armor... You think it keeps you safe, but all it does is weigh you down and make it hard for you to move.

Style is the outcome of constraint.

No man can take your freedom from you. They can limit your mobility, but that's about all they can do

Telling me I can do anything I want is like pulling the plug out of the bath and then telling the water it can go anywhere it wants. Try it, and see what happens.

I'm used to working with restrictions and that's when you come up with the more creative stuff.

You have no idea how many times I’ve been barricaded inside a box in my life. I know it’s for my protection. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. (Kiara)

I'm afraid you will have to fly holding the rock with its heavy chain.