Quote collection
353 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I'd say, [writing memoir] not so much a model, but maybe to provide an insight, here or there, to help somebody come to terms with the dark corners of their own soul, to come to terms with the undecided, their own sense of self, and maybe help develop a capacity to love - to love wisdom, love justice."
"You can see it in terms of the obsession on Wall Street with not just profits but greed, more profit, more profit."
"You're trying to just leave the world a little better."
"Fantasies are real. They have effects on your soul, even though, as I was too young to really step forward."
"Anybody who takes Martin Luther King seriously has got to go beyond the standard understanding of who he was, has to connect those dots."
"There is no fundamental social change by being simply of individual and interpersonal actions. You have to have organizations and institutions that make a fundamental difference."
"Hatred of injustice is not the same thing as a love for everyday people."
"I'm actually with the classics in general in terms of understanding truth in an existential mode. Therefore, philosophy becomes more a way of life as opposed to simply a mode of discourse."
"Truth is fine. Absolutely."
"Optimism is evidence-based."
"It's fashionable to be indifferent to other people's suffering"
"Context shapes who you are."
"This book is the best treatment of the best American Marxist philosopher-and the best philosopher to emerge from American slums. Young Sidney Hook is essential reading for anyone interested in democratic theory and practice in America."
"For me the prophetic has to do with mustering the courage to love, to empathize, to exercise compassion, and to be committed to justice."
"Isabel Wilkerson's book is a masterful narrative of the rich wisdom and deep courage of a great people. Don't miss it!"
"Like Richard Ellmann on James Joyce, Arnold Rampersad on Ralph Ellison is in a class of its own. His masterful and magisterial book is the most powerful and profound treatment of Ellison's undeniable artistic genius, deep personal flaws, and controversial political evolution. And he reveals an Ellison unbeknownst to all of us. From now on, all serious scholarship on Ellison must begin with Rampersad's instant and inimitable classic in literary biography."
"I'm a bluesman moving through a blues-soaked America, a blues-soaked world, a planet where catastrophe and celebration - joy and pain - sit side by side."
"The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper."
"I do believe that not just the churches but strong communities, strong trade unions, strong families can make a difference in terms of producing persons much more virtuous than what one usually finds in a gangster culture."
"Some people don't want to be morally consistent. They just want to be tied to their one issue."