Yes, I have cherished my "demagogue" role. I know that societies often have killed the people who have helped to change those societies. And if I can die having bought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is maligant in the body of America - then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have been mine.
Malcolm X in The Autobiograghy of Malcom X (1964)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Neither you nor I
Cows breed more, deer breed more and hares breed more;
They must breed more for forests want them more.
They must feed lions, tigers and foxes
With their casualties in multitudes.
The poor breed more and the lowly breed more;
They must breed more for societies want them more
They must serve the rich, masters and leaders
With their casualties in multitudes.
Between the forests and the societies,
The difference is: forests gave no saints
Whereas the societies gave saints in chain.
No change in societies as in forests..
Who is the planer? Who can defeat him?
Who is the keeper? Who can control him?
Who is the owner? Who can approach him?
Neither you nor I can reform the world.
15.07.2008
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In contrast, fear societies are societies in which dissent is banned.
quote by Natan Sharansky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
In general, human societies are not innovative. They are hierarchical and ritualistic. Suggestions for change are greeted with suspicion; they imply an unpleasant future variation in ritual and hierarchy; an exchange of one set of rituals for another, or perhaps for a less structured society with fewer rituals. And yet there are times when societies must change.
Carl Sagan in Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence
Submitted by Catalin Popescu
Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian
Think how different human societies would be if they were based on love rather than justice. But no such societies have ever existed on earth.
quote by Mortimer Adler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Monopoly controls have been the exception in free societies; they have been the rule in closed societies.
quote by Lawrence Lessig
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.
quote by Natan Sharansky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
In most of history, societies have not been free. It's a very rare society that is free. The default condition of human societies is tyranny.
quote by Michael Novak
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The rate of human invention is faster, and the rate of cultural loss is slower, in areas occupied by many competing societies with many individuals and in contact with societies elsewhere.
quote by Jared Diamond
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
A social problem is one that concerns the way in which people live together in one society. A racial problem is a problem which confronts two different races who live in two separate societies, even if those societies are side by side.
quote by Pauline Hanson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
From Greece To Rome (Part Two)
it took the civil rights movement,
the women's movement,
and the laborer's movement...
led by such as Cesar Chavez,
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X,
James Baldwin, Maya Angelou,
just to mention a few.
imprisonment, beatings, marches,
and many are dead now,
sacrificed to the cause.
JFK warned of secret societies,
wanted to pull out of Vietnam...
his brother Bobby stood up
for justice against the wheel...
both killed by the machine.
over 40,000 killed in Vietnam,
riots in the cities of America.
Nixon lied, America fell into stupor,
and those who believed
became part of the masses.
yet now, a turn for the worse!
/continued/
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The dual scourge of hunger and malnutrition will be truly vanquished not only when granaries are full, but also when people's basic health needs are met and women are given their rightful role in societies.
quote by Gro Harlem Brundtland
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
When we are unwilling to draw clear moral lines between free societies and fear societies, when we are unwilling to call the former good and the latter evil, we will not be able to advance the cause of peace because peace cannot be disconnected from freedom.
quote by Natan Sharansky
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Now between '45 and '48, things would change enormously, 'cos we'd had credit in United States, credit from the Bank of America, credit from the Import-Export Bank and people had started working again.
quote by Gianni Agnelli
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
And my point was one I think that you'd agree with, which is there's no room in America for a black racist, a Latino racist, or a white racist, or an Asian racist, or a Native American racist. Now, we're either color blind or we're not color blind.
quote by Newt Gingrich
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Girls (Chapter 4, Verses 157-158, Holy Koran)
I ask for refuge to Allah from Satan the exiled evildoer.
In the name of Allah the Kind and the Merciful Giver.
And they said, we have killed the Messiah
Jesus the son of Mary, the apostle of Allah
But the truth is they did not kill him
Nor did they crucify him
It only appeared to them so
And surely those who differ are confused about it
Because they have no knowledge about it
Only guesses are available for them, no more
So you see they didn't kill him for sure.
Allah took him up to Himself alive.
And He is the Mighty and Wise.
poem by Asif Andalib
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I certainly can't speak for all cultures or all societies, but it's clear that in America, poetry serves a very marginal purpose. It's not part of the cultural mainstream.
quote by Mark Strand
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Miracle of Mistakes
For each adult who now stands tall,
How many times a baby’s fall?
The eloquence for which we reach,
Bought by a child’s stammered speech.
So not to err is not to walk,
And no mistakes would mean no talk.
Look deep in self for what it takes.
There’s no reward without mistakes.
To improve means being wrong
To find that place where you belong.
Upon arrival wisdom’s clear.
Mistakes have helped bring each one here.
For to learn is to fall,
Then rise again and give it all.
Each time that doubt interferes,
View the start of all your years.
Walks and talks could not take place
Unless mistakes helped carve their space.
From baby’s wisdom do confess.
With no mistakes there’s no progress.
poem by Gregory Huyette
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Terrorism takes us back to ages we thought were long gone if we allow it a free hand to corrupt democratic societies and destroy the basic rules of international life.
quote by Jacques Chirac
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Many individuals are doing what they can. But real success can only come if there is a change in our societies and in our economics and in our politics.
quote by David Attenborough
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living by the Truth and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own pulpit bannister.
quote by Herman Melville
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!