Social Commentary Quotes

When it comes to racism, you hear people say, "I don't care if people are white, black, purple or green." Hold on, now, purple or green? Come on now, you gotta draw the line somewhere.

There was an old Woman who lived in a shoe She had so many children Her government subsidy check came to $4,892.

Drug dealer buy Jordans, crackhead buy crack. And a white man get paid off of all of that.

Poverty and oysters always seem to go together.

The same crime element that white people are scared of black people are scared of. While they waiting for legislation to pass, we next door to the killer. All them killers they let out, they're in that building. Just because we black, we get along with the killers? What is that?

I've only written one science-fiction book: 'Fahrenheit 451.' That book is a book based on real facts and my hatred of people who destroy books.

Painting is not made to decorate apartments. It's an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy. (about Guernica).

They are so filthy and bestial that no honest man would admit one into his house for a water-closet doormat.

When you think about it, attention-deficit order makes a lot of sense. In this country there isn't a lot worth paying attention to.

With all this extra stressinThe question I wonder is after death, after my last breathWhen will I finaly get to rest? Through this supressionthey punish the people that's askin questionsAnd those that possess, steal from the ones without possesionsThe message I stress: to make it stop study your lessonsDon't settle for less - even the genius asks-es questionsBe grateful for blessingsDon't ever change, keep your essenceThe power is in the people and politics we address.

Don't come giving me, who's old enough to die and too near blind to create anything any more anyhow, a great big banquet that you eat up in honor of your own stomachs as much as in honor of me- who's toothless and can't eat.

George W. Bush doesn't care about black people.

Even the lowest of the Hindus, the Pariah, has less of the brute in him than a Briton in a similar social status.

As long as what is is-and Georgia is Georgia-I will take Harlem for mine. At least, if trouble comes, I will have my own window to shoot from.

Why is there such controversy about drug testing? I know plenty of guys who'd be willing to test any drug they can come up with.

The world is a puzzling place today. All these banks sending us credit cards, with our names on them. Well, we didn't order any credit cards! We don't spend what we don't have. So we just cut them in half and throw them out, just as soon as we open them in the mail. Imagine a bank sending credit cards to two ladies over a hundred years old! What are those folks thinking?

My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.

Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. Often the poor man is not cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune.

Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'

Go ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred Bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, Teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man's neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul's bright torch as fast as it is kindled!

No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.

The black kids, the poor white kids, Spanish-speaking kids, and Asian kids in the US - in the face of everything to the contrary, they still bop and bump, shout and go to school somehow. Their optimism gives me hope.

A distinguished clergyman told me that he chose the profession of a clergyman because it afforded the most leisure for literary pursuits. I would recommend to him the profession of a governor.

What times! What manners!

Kill two birds with one stone, feed the homeless to the hungry.

This dark diction has become America's addiction.

Mr. president, I've been a citizen of the United States of America for thirty three years and was never invited to the White House. It sure gives me pleasure to be invited to the Black House.

Now in regard to trades and other means of livelihood, which ones are to be considered becoming to a gentleman and which ones are vulgar, we have been taught, in general, as follows. First, those means of livelihood are rejected as undesirable which incur people's ill-will, as those of tax-gatherers and usurers. Unbecoming to a gentleman, too, and vulgar are the means of livelihood of all hired workmen whom we pay for mere manual labour, not for artistic skill; for in their case the very wage they receive is a pledge of their slavery.

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.

Gangsta Rap is dead. I've moved on. And the raps that I'm rappin to my community shouldn't be filled with rage? They shouldn't be filled with same attrocities that they gave me? The media they don't talk about it, so in my raps I have to talk about it, and it seems foreign because there's no one else talking about it.

A poor man who eats too much, as contradistinguished from a gourmand, who is a rich man who ''lives well.''

Wars of nations are fought to change maps. But wars of poverty are fought to map change.

Some show their kindness to the poor by employing them in their kitchens. Would they not be kinder if they employed themselves there?

The violence of the Left is symbolic, the injuries are not intended. The violence of the Right is real - directed at people, designed to cause injuries. Vietnam, nuclear weapons, police out of control are intentional forms of violence. The violence from the Right is aimed directly at people and the violence from the Left is aimed at institutions and symbols.

The poor and ignorant will continue to lie and steal as long as the rich and educated show them how.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Listen closely: You'll hear their feet Beating out and beating out a - You think It's a happy beat? Listen to it closely: Ain't you heard something underneath like a - What did I say? Sure, I'm happy! Take it away! Dream Boogie Hey, pop! Re-bop! Mop! Y-e-a-h!

The conviction of the rich that the poor are happier is no more foolish than the conviction of the poor that the rich are.

Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves.

Vadalism: beautiful as a rock in a cop's face.

Today is built on tragedies, which no one wants to face, nightmares to humanities and morally disgraced. Tonight is filled with rage, violence in the air, children bred with ruthlessness because no one at home cares.

My writing has been largely concerned with the depicting of Negro life in America.

Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car."

What do you think an artist is? ...he is a political being, constantly aware of the heart breaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.

Here's a thought for sweat shop owners: Air Conditioning. Problem solved.

Farmers are respectable and interesting to me in proportion as they are poor.

The Second Amendment says we have the right to bear arms, not to bear artillery.

Jamie Kilstein is amazing and I will be spreading the word. He has the spark that energized my conscience. We need more comedians kicking it hard the way he does every night

There is a huge body of evidence to support the notion that me and the police were put on this earth to do extremely different things and never to mingle professionally with each other, except at official functions, when we all wear ties and drink heavily and whoop it up like the natural, good-humored wild boys that we know in our hearts that we are..These occasions are rare, but they happen - despite the forked tongue of fate that has put us forever on different paths.

Someone said, and rightfully, that "property is theft'." There's no way a man can stand and tell me that he owns an apple tree. I just don't believe you. And so this pursuit of position and money and power, they are all wrapped up into one package that I think is crippling, debilitating and limiting. And unfortunately, people get sucked into it and then they've got you on the treadmill. You know: ''You've got to have a good job'' and "You've got to have a good education'' - which is another word for indoctrination. We're never going to rise above these limitations we've placed on ourselves.

I'm the rap version of Dave Chappelle. I'm not sayin' I'm nearly as talented as Chappelle when it comes to political and social commentary, but like him, I'm laughing to keep from crying.

Black men - one might be the president. Well, America's in too much trouble - I don't want that job now.

Martin Luther King was bumped off unjustly, Adam Clayton Powell was bumped off unjustly, they took my title unjustly, they killed Megers Ever unjustly, all the integrators who love white folks, was unjustly kicked out of Washington, they've been deprived of education and poverty throughout the country.

In the two books I wrote, even though they were written in a sort of Joycean gobbledegook, there's many knocks at religion and there is a play about a worker and a capitalist. I've been satirising the system since my childhood. I used to write magazines in school and hand them around.

I have a suggestion that I think would help fight serious crime. Signs. There are lots of signs for minor infractions: No Smoking, Stay Off the Grass, Keep Out, and they seem to work fairly well. I think we should also have signs for major crimes: Murder Strictly Prohibited, NO Raping People, Thank You for Not Kidnapping Anyone. It's certainly worth a try. I'm convinced Watergate would never have happened if there had just been a sign in the Oval Office that said, Malfeasance of Office Is Strictly Against the Law, or Thank You for Not Undermining the Constitution.

It is brought home to you...that it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior.

A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.

You know what they want? They want obedient workers. Obedient workers, people who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork. And just dumb enough to passively accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime and vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're coming for your Social Security money. They want your f**kin' retirement money. They want it back so they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street.

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.

Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.