Paul Laurence Dunbar Quotes: Sources, Meanings & Themes
Browse quotations by Paul Laurence Dunbar with named works, context notes, meanings and recurring themes.
Source identified1
Image design Rose Studio
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“Perseverance still is king; Time its sure reward will bring; Work and wait unwearying,—”
Meaning & context
Dunbar closes the poem by making patient continued effort its central refrain, pairing work with the willingness to wait through difficulty.
Source details
“Keep A-Pluggin’ Away,” represented by Wikisource’s Complete Poems transcription. The poem repeatedly urges persistence through steep paths, storms, ridicule and pain; its period motivational voice is literary encouragement, not a guarantee that effort always produces a desired outcome.
Source identified2
Image design Lavender
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“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me, When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—”
Meaning & context
Dunbar links the caged bird’s song to injury and frustrated freedom, making the voice a plea born from confinement rather than uncomplicated joy.
Source details
“Sympathy,” published in Lyrics of the Hearthside (1899) and represented by Poetry Foundation. The caged-bird image became one of Dunbar’s most influential metaphors for constrained freedom and suffering; the record keeps the poem’s figurative language rather than assigning one exhaustive historical interpretation.
Source identified3
Image design Coastal
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“We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—”
Meaning & context
Dunbar’s collective speaker describes a public performance that conceals pain, making outward appearance and inward suffering deliberately diverge.
Source details
“We Wear the Mask,” represented in Lyrics of Lowly Life (1896) on Wikisource. The poem’s collective voice and historical reception connect concealment with racial and social pressure; it should not be reduced to personal dishonesty or a generic “fake people” slogan.