Quotes from Harry Belafonte

When I was 20 and 30, my visions for what the world would be, all things were possible.

America has never been moved to perfect our desire for greater democracy without radical thinking and radical voices being at the helm of any such quest.

I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.

I not only think that they (U.S. leaders) are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil.

I think that they [Bush Administration] are men who are possessed of evil.

More than once my mother would point out: "Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet."

I don't think that (U.S. President) George Bush...is a man of honor.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in

My activism always existed. My art gave me the platform to do something about the activism.

I'm always suspicious of celebrities that write about their lives.

I grew up in the Great Depression, and the jazz artists and Dixieland musicians were at the core of our communications and enjoyment. They were not passing fancies. They are something that is, and will be, listened to again and again. I have a space of reverence for some of those old jazz stars such as Sydney Bechet and Louis Armstrong.

I don't think soldiers should be anywhere in the world. I mean, that is a moral and a basic philosophy. I think that the only way to end wars is to have no military and to find other ways in which - I think we should suspend all nuclear weapons.

You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel.

If you believe in justice, if you believe in democracy, if you believe in people's rights, if you believe in the harmony of all humankind - then you have no choice but to back Fidel Castro as long as it takes!

Art in its highest form is art that serves and instructs society and human development.

If you want to look at the Monroe Doctrine and what happened when we wrote that, we stated what the business would be for America's power, especially in this hemisphere. We have always been the colonizer of this hemisphere, wherever we've been.

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.

I am who I am despite what America has put before me. I am who I am despite the obstacles that we have all faced based upon race and based upon social and spiritual humiliation.

Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression.

I call President Bush a terrorist. I call those around him terrorists as well: Condoleezza Rice, Rumsfeld, Gonzales in the Justice Department, and certainly Cheney.

The pursuit of justice is all I have ever known.

John Steinbeck is one of the most under-discussed and under-written-about of all American writers. He is way up there and should stand on a par, or even above, Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner.

What makes a movement work are thousands of parts that come together and express itself in favor of a given destination or objective. You have to find men and women who are willing to play the role that each of these things demand.