Social Commentary Quotes

We might adapt for the artist the joke about there being nothing more dangerous than instruments of war in the hands of generals. In the same way, there is nothing more dangerous than justice in the hands of judges, and a paint brush in the hands of a painter! Just think of the danger to society! But today we haven't the heart to expel the painters and poets because we no longer admit to ourselves that there is any danger in keeping them in our midst.

It's a strange world. Some people get rich and others eat sh** and die.

The highly motivated people in society are the ones causing all the trouble. It's not the lazy unmotivated folks sitting in front of a TV eating potato chips who bother anyone.

No, painting is not interior decoration. It is an instrument of war for attack and defense against the enemy.

Science fiction is a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present. You can criticize communists, racists, fascists or any other clear and present danger, and they can't imagine you are writing about them.

I know a member of one of New York's first families (first as you drive up Tenth Avenue)

Capitalism tries for a delicate balance: It attempts to work things out so that everyone gets just enough stuff to keep them from getting violent and trying to take other people’s stuff.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

Standing ovations have become far too commonplace. What we need are ovations where the audience members all punch and kick one another.

Objects of charity are not guests.

I believe myself to be a worthwhile and inventive performer in my own right. But I'm not in a league with Lenny [Bruce], certainly not in terms of social commentary.

Some think, "If I marry this guy who's two inches taller than I am and who has a nice bank account, I won't die. If I buy six cars, I won't die. If I hate Jews, I won't die. If I hate homosexuals, I won't die." They think they will increase their life by shunting misery onto somebody else, but it's just the opposite.

Painting isn't made for the decoration of apartments; it is a weapon to be used offensively and defensively against the enemy.

I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad idea.

Art isn't done to decorate apartments, but to wage war against the enemy.

A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his own weight in other people's patience.

I don't think drugs are a problem; I think they're a symptom. As long as Americans are empty, spiritually, emotionally, morally empty, they will need things like the drugs they choose to use. Mankind has wanted to change the way it felt from the beginning anyway. In this country there are even more reasons to want to feel different, to want to feel better, because this is such a neon sewer. This is such a degrading culture. It forces you to play Beethoven to your child in the uterus so that he will get into a better school and a better job and make more money so he can take care of you.

Political discourse has been reduced to "Where's the beef?" "Read my lips," and "Make my day." Where are the assassins when we really need them?

Summer was made to give you a taste of what hell is like. Winter was made for landladies to charge high rents and keep cold radiators and make a fortune off of poor tenants.

The things that matter in this country have been reduced in choice, there are two political parties, there are a handful insurance companies, there are six or seven information centers.. but if you want a bagel there are 23 flavors. Because you have the illusion of choice!

A person of good intelligence and of sensitivity cannot exist in this society very long without having some anger about the inequality - and it's not just a bleeding-heart, knee-jerk, liberal kind of a thing - it is just a normal human reaction to a nonsensical set of values where we have cinnamon flavored dental floss and there are people sleeping in the street.

Certainly there is, for the American Negro artist who can escape the restrictions the more advanced among his own group would put upon him, a great field of unused material ready for his art.

The first of the month falls every month, too, North or South. And them white folks who sends bills never forgets to send them-the phone bill, the furniture bill, the water bill, the gas bill, insurance, house rent.

When German soldiers used to come to my studio and look at my pictures of Guernica, they'd ask 'Did you do this?'. And I'd say, 'No, you did.'

Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.

The revolutionary artist does not only focus on the negative aspects of capitalist lives, but also creates visions of a revolutionary future.

Lenny Bruce genius was the unique ability to investigate hypocrisy and expose social inequities in a street rap that was really a form of poetry.

New York, like London, seems to be a cloacina [toilet] of all the depravities of human nature.

For though we are perpetually bragging of it as our safety, it is nothing but a poor fringe on the mantle of the upper.

One of the great difficulties about being a member of a minority race is that so many kindhearted, well-meaning bores gather around to help.

That Justice is a blind goddessIs a thing to which we black are wise:Her bandage hides two festering soresThat once perhaps were eyes.

I understand that the worst people in England at a time were ran to America, for some reason.Then slavery came and calls of aggression. But we've been there 600 years and there ain't no peace between black and whites because the cultures are different - like the Chinese and Mexicans cannot integrate: the music is different, the eating is different.

Black people ALL are fightin' you all for freedom, justice and equality. One believes that intermarriage is gonna solve it, and 200 years from now we all will be a beautiful cream color. He really believes it. One believe that gittin' some rifles and shootin' up the country is gonna solve it, another believes that education. One day we'll be the president. One believe that we gotta git into the white man's pockets and get all the money.

They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.

Foreign languages, I think they are important but I don't think it should be required because-actually I think they should be teaching you English and then teaching you how to understand double talk-a politician's double talk-not teaching you how to understand French and Spanish and German, when am I going to Germany? I can't even afford to pay my rent in America, how am I going to Germany?

A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish; and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.

I rented a car. I didn't really need one, I just wanted to make one less available. I wanted one businessman on the bus with no car.

People who wash much have a high mind about it, and talk down to those who wash little.

A story went the rounds about a San Franciscan white matron who refused to sit beside a Negro civilian on the streetcar, even after he made room for her on the seat. Her explanation was that she would not sit beside a draft dodger who was a Negro as well. She added that the least he could do was fight for his country the way her son was fighting on Iwo Jima. The story said that the man pulled his body away from the window to show an armless sleeve. He said quietly and with great dignity, "Then ask your son to look around for my arm, which I left over there.

the term 'young adults' which is so often used today seems to me a misnomer, and one which, if taken seriously, may lead the adolescent into misunderstanding as to his nature and his role in life. 'Young" he is; 'adult' he is not.