#Social Commentary Quotes

“No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.”

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

“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?”

“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?”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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?”

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

“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?'”

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

“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”

“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”

“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 done to decorate apartments. It is an instrument of war.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“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.'”

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

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

“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.”

“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 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“What times! What manners!”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“This dark diction has become America's addiction.”