Quotes About Struggle

And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than "going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly." It is also an immanent reality—a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst, "building them up where they are torn down and propping them up on every leaning side." The gospel is found wherever poor people struggle for justice, fighting for their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

And certainly the history of the black-white relations in this country from the Civil War to the present unmistakably shows that as a people, America has never intended for blacks to be free. To this day, in the eyes of most white Americans, the black man remains subhuman.

Unlike Europeans who immigrated to this land to escape from tyranny, Africans came in chains to serve a nation of tyrants.

a bullock, backing in alarm from the halter, crashed its craggy behind into my midriff. The wind shot out of me in a sharp hiccup, then the animal decided to turn round in the narrow passage, squashing me like a fly against the railings. I was pop-eyed as it scrambled round; I wondered whether the creaking was coming from my ribs or the wood behind me.

I like playing music because it's a good living and I get satisfaction from it. But I can't feed my family with satisfaction.

Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. If a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid it's also in the system, the society.

But now I'm beginning to care again—a little—and it hurts—it's really more convenient not to have any hopes and fears.

One of the most powerful shocks of the Middle Passage is the collapse of our tacit contract with the universe–the assumption that if we act correctly, if we are of good heart and good intentions, things will work out. We assume a reciprocity with the universe. If we do our part, the universe will comply. Many ancient stories, including the Book of Job, painfully reveal the fact that there is no such contract, and everyone who goes through the Middle Passage is made aware of it.

What a sight the poor make in the moonlight!

No matter how often I pray, how many retreats I make, or how hard I try, I still sin. It is something that I bump up against daily.

All Welsh knew was that he was scared shitless, and at the same time was afflicted with a choking gorge of anger that any social coercion existed in the world which could force him to be here.

The boy Prewitt loved the songs because they gave him something, a first hint that pain might not be pointless if you could only turn it into something.

Two whores who finally found something to mother. A guy could write a book about it, he thought bitterly, call it From Hair To Maternity . It would probly be a very long book. Whores did not produce as fast as rabbits.

Look a'here, some people say we got a lot of malice Some say it's a lotta nerve I say we won't quit moving Til we get what we deserve. We've been 'buked and we've been scourned We've been treated bad, talked about As just as sure as you're born But just as sure as it take Two eyes to make a pair, huh Brother, we can't quit until we get our share. Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud.

Sometimes you struggle so hard to feed your family one way, you forget to feed them the other way, with spiritual nourishment. Everybody needs that.

It doesn't matter how you travel it, it's the same road. It doesn't get any easier when you get bigger, it gets harder. And it will kill you if you let it.

When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flown at it to hold it back from flight.

Ireland is the old sow that eats her farrow.

History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awaken.

You forget that the kingdom of heaven suffers violence: and the kingdom of heaven is like a woman.

History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.

Your battles inspired me - not the obvious material battles but those that were fought and won behind your forehead.

I'm for anything that gets you through the night, be it prayer, tranquilizers or a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Little world, full of scars and gashes, ripened with another's pain, Your flowers feed on carrion--so do your birds; Men feed on each other because you taught them life was cheap, Flowing from your endless womb without pain or understanding. No midwife caresses your flesh or bathes clean your progeny, Life spurts from you, little world, and you regard it with disdain. Only bruised men sense your cruelty, men whose life has lost its meaning.