Quotes About Struggle

What do those who struggle against power do when they seize power? What does the revolutionary do when the revolution triumphs? Why do those who call for independence and freedom take away the independence and freedom of others? And is it sane or insane to believe, as so many around us apparently do, in nothing?

Our proper mode in situations where demand was high and supply was low was to elbow, jostle, crowd, and hustle, and, if all that failed, to bribe, flatter, exaggerate, and lie.

What am I dying for? he cried back. I'm dying because this world I'm living in isn't worth dying for! If something is worth dying for, then you've got a reason to live.

Thousands more must be staring into darkness like us, gripped by scandalous thoughts, extravagant hopes, and forbidden plots. We lie in wait for the right moment and the just cause, which, at this moment, is simply wanting to live.

The colonized is a persecuted person whose permanent dream is to become the persecutor.

Strong and healthy, that's what these twins will be. They'll need to be. This country isn't for the weak or the fat.

Those who believe in revolutions are the ones who haven't lived through one yet.

Imagine always having to live with a hyphen dividing you!

It was an act of faith, and faith would not be faith if it was not hard, if it was not a test, if it was not an act of willful ignorance, of believing in something that can neither be predicted nor proved by any scientific metric.

We were the unwanted, the unneeded, and the unseen, invisible to all but ourselves. And you are so happy you don't know whether to laugh or cry.

while only the pursuit of happiness is promised to all Americans, unhappiness is guaranteed for many.

I'm dying because this world I'm living in isn't worth dying for! if something is worth dying for, then you've got a reason to live.

Yes, I am flawed, we are all flawed, even you, but I blame my flaws on the fact that all my life I only ever aspired to one thing—to be human. That was my first mistake, since I was already human, a fact not always recognized by others.

Viet Thanh Nguyen

When it came to learning the worst habits of our French masters and their American replacements, we quickly proved ourselves the best. We, too, could abuse grand ideals! Having liberated ourselves in the name of independence and freedom—I was so tired of saying these words!—we then deprived our defeated brethren of the same.

These invaders came to conquer our land and now would never go home.

I was no more than the garment worker who made sure the stitching was correct in an outfit designed, produced, and consumed by the wealthy white people of the world. They owned the means of production, and therefore the means of representation, and the best that we could ever hope for was to get a word in

nothing was more American than wielding a gun and committing oneself to die for freedom and independence, unless it was wielding that gun to take away someone else's freedom and independence.

Ever since the first caveman discovered fire and decided that the ones still living in darkness were benighted, it's been civilization against barbarism . . . with every age having its own barbarians.

I am a refugee, an American, and a human being, which is important to proclaim, as there are many who think these identities cannot be reconciled.

Don't you get it? They've got no intention of coming back. They know it's a suicide mission. Life's a suicide mission.

consumed by the metastasizing cancer called assimilation and susceptible to the hypochondria of exile.

Even with liberal white people, one could go only so far, and with average white people one could barely go anywhere.

But the only thing harder than knowing the right thing to do, I went on, is to actually do the right thing.