Quotes About Struggle

Words like "freedom," "justice," "democracy" are not common concepts; on the contrary, they are rare. People are not born knowing what these are. It takes enormous and, above all, individual effort to arrive at the respect for other people that these words imply.

It is true that two wrongs don't make a right, as we love to point out to the people we have wronged. But one wrong doesn't make a right, either. People who have been wronged will attempt to right the wrong; they would not be people if they didn't. They can rarely afford to be scrupulous about the means they will use. They will use such means as come to hand. Neither, in the main, will they distinguish one oppressor from another, nor see through to the root principle of their oppression.

I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed.

He lived the life he lived, like anybody, I guess, and he paid his dues, like everybody. Maybe what I mean when I say he made his life so hard was that he always tried to pay his dues in front.

Harlem had needed something to smash. To smash something is the ghetto's chronic need.

My life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do but from the hatred I carried in my own heart.

If they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.

We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed.

You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who have ever been alive.

I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.

People can cry much easier than they can change.

The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.

Ah, who can tell how hard it is to climb The steep where Fames proud temple shines afar?

I don't deal with death very well. My brother, John Candy, my dad, my mom, Brandon Tartikoff just a couple of weeks ago. I mean, you lose a lot of people in your life, and that's one thing I am constantly working on - pain management.

Whatever I did, even backed by Sting's cash and moral support, it turned to shit. I had reached the end of the line. I became a statistic. Jim Berryman, actor, comedian, bookie and lounge-lizard, was on the dole!

As Plato once said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

Maybe God is on the side of the werewolves.

The Christian life is not easy. No responsible person ever said it was. It is a battle all the way. But it is a battle that will be won. And when it is won, we who have triumphed will cast our crowns at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, who worked in us to accomplish victory, and we will praise Him forever.

His mind resembled the vast ampitheatre, the Colisum at Rome. In the centre stood his judgement, which like a mighty gladiator, combated those apprehensions that, like the wild beasts of the Arena, were all around in cells, ready to be let out upon him. After a conflict, he drives them back into their dens; but not killing them, they were still assailing him.

I'm not crazy for feeling this way. They're crazy for trying to stop me. And if it's the last time I ever get to feel joy again, I won't let them have it.

This makes no sense. None of it does. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the things that make the least amount of sense are the things you're supposed to do. I don't know. - I look at him, looking back at me. - But one thing I know: I'm not crazy for feeling this way. They're crazy for trying to stop me. And if it's the last time I ever get to feel joy again, I won't let them have it.

I have been invaded by my own secrets and I must try to find out how to live with them.