Walter Benjamin People Quotations

Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the church is often labeled today as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and Of all the ways of acquiring books, writing them oneself is regarded as the most praiseworthy method. Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.

In the long run, the people are our only appeal. The only ones who can free us are ourselves.

It never occurred to me that anyone would name a nuclear missile "Peacekeeper". It never occurred to me that thousands of people would be killed in the name of "peace-keeping".

If the U.S. succeeds in destroying the revolution, my status will be like that of most Cubans: I'll be up a creek without a paddle. It will be devastating for people worldwide who believe in justice.

People ask me if I miss the States. I miss African Americans. But not the U.S. government or all the things they put me through. I miss African American culture, our speech, dance and cooking.

People come telling the truth. When I ask how thing are in the States, they don't give me the okeydoke. They say, "Honey, things are hard." It reminds me I have to keep struggling.

I think that people who want to change this planet have to seriously understand that as human beings we have to work to be good.

I really wanted to know what happens in a place that is trying to build socialism, that's trying to construct some form of social justice. That's trying to feed people, to make health care and education a right.

There is a down side to everything if you don't understand what the consequences of what you are saying in your music you could possibly end up getting yourself killed or hurting other people because of your carelessness.

The methods of peaceful protests are not capable of being effective, because in reality most people pay little attention to things that are not abrasive.

There is something about Sundiata [Acoli] that exudes calm. From every part of his being you can sense the presence of revolutionary spirit and fervor. And his love for Black people is so intense that you can almost touch it and hold it in your hand.

Tourism has affected Cuba, because tourists come and they bring racist, sexist ideas. They bring a whole vision that there are rich people all over the world and that's the way it should be.

Cubans understand that theirs is a country that provides sanctuary for people fleeing oppression. As a nation, they are very proud of this stance. They don't care how much the U.S. government badgers or attacks them.

We had to learn that we're beautiful. We had to relearn something forcefully taken from us. We had to learn about Black power. People have power if we unite. We learned the importance of coming together and being active

Some people spell "good" with two o's and some people spell it with one... and there shouldn't be a contradiction between that.

People are really beginning to see the mechanisms of imperialism. When colonialism existed people could see colonialism. When racial segregation existed in its apartheid form, people could see the "whites only" signs. But it's much more difficult to see the structures of neo-imperialism, neo-colonialism, neo-slavery.

I don't have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating.

I had grown up at a time when people were being lynched, being attacked with water hoses. Becoming active and learning a different way of viewing my life was a healthy reaction to what I was seeing every day.

We have to have a vision of the world we want to make in 100 years. And maybe when we have that vision, when we convince enough people that that is a realistic vision, and that the opposite vision is basically that if we don't do something in this 100 years, a hundred years from now this world is gonna be so destroyed, so raped and ravished that we won't HAVE much of a world to save.

I stay connected in my head. I'm spiritually and psychologically connected to African-Americans. They are my people, and that will never change.

Hip Hop can be a very effective way to reach young people and teach them about current political and social issues.

When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.

Schools in amerika are interested in brainwashing people with amerikanism, giving them a little bit of education, and training them in skills needed to fill the positions the capitalist system requires. As long as we expect amerika's schools to educate us, we will remain ignorant.

How lovely it is to live with a sense of community. To live where you can drop in the street and a million people will come and help you.

I really prefer to be kind of anonymous. Because when people know your whole history, they have a tendency to relate to you differently and maybe put you up on a pedestal. I want people to just be normal with me. I just want to live my life.

The more you understand what you're dealing with, the stronger you get. People see fear as a bad thing. Fear is healthy when you're dealing with Amerika. But when fear controls you, when you're afraid to struggle fear is a bad thing. I'm more afraid of what will happen if I don't struggle, than what will happen if I do

People are tried and convicted in the newspapers and on television before they ever see a courtroom.

When you go through all your life processing and abusing your hair so it will look like the hair of another race of people then you are making a statement and the statement is clear

My experience in the United States was living in a society that was very much at war with itself, that was very alienated. People felt not part of a community, but like isolated units that were afraid of interaction, of contact, that were lonely.

I found that people had all kinds of levels of consciousness, all kinds of levels of education, but that Cubans in general were very educated politically. I could go sit in a bus and get into a conversation with someone and that person had a wealth of knowledge. And energy!

Any community seriously concerned with its own freedom has to be concerned about other people's freedom as well. The victory of oppressed people anywhere in the world is a victory for Black people. Each time one of imperialism's tentacles is cut off we are closer to liberation.

At this time I'd like to say a few words especially to my sisters: SISTERS. BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE.

We're living in a very tricky world, and unless we become analytical and expose the tricknology, people will become sucked into that. It is very easy, it is very, very easy.

The usual way the people are taught to think in amerika is that each subject is in a little compartment and has no relation to any other subject. For the most part, we receive fragments of unrelated knowledge, and our education follows no logical format or pattern. It is exactly this kind of education that produces people who don’t have the ability to think for themselves and who are easily manipulated.

People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.

Less and less frequently do we encounter people with the ability to tell a tale properly. More and more often there is embarrassment all around when the wish to hear a story is expressed. It is as if something that seemed inalienable to us, the securest among our possessions, were taken from us: the ability to exchange our experiences...Experience has fallen in value. And it looks as if it is continuing to fall into bottomlessness.

There was the pedestrian who wedged himself into the crowd, but there was also the flneur who demanded elbow room and was unwilling to forego the life of the gentleman of leisure. His leisurely appearance as a personality is his protest against the division of labour which makes people into specialists. it was also his protest against their industriousness. Around 1840 it was briefly fashionable to take turtles for a walk in the arcades. the flneurs liked to have the turtles set the pace for them.

Writers are really people who write books not because they are poor, but because they are dissatisfied with the books which they could buy but do not like.