“Inequality is the deepest of problems, built into the structure of reality itself, and will not be solved by the presumptuous, ideology-inspiring retooling of the rare free, stable and productive democracies of the world.”
“Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience.”
“Greatness is not measured by the walls we build but by the bridges.”
“Italy is such a delightful place to live in if you happen to be a man. There one may enjoy that exquisite luxury of Socialism — that true Socialism which is based not on equality of income or character, but on the equality of manners.”
“A person does not want to lead or follow their friends. Friendship implies a close association, a sharing amongst equals. The difficulty in maintaining a friendship is that no two people are equal, and at some point, one person must concede part of their pride in order to maintain the relationship that is growing lopsided in power or prestige.”
“Consider me, Descended also From the Mystery.”
“Don t fight the system. Mock the system.”
“Young people are meant to go off the rails politically, aren’t they? And there are certainly far worse things one can do than dream about equality.”
“If societies are going to elevate women to equality with men—and declare that people of any race or religion have the same rights as anyone else—then we have to have men and women and every racial and religious group together writing the code. … Diversity is the best way to defend equality. If people from diverse groups are not making those decisions, the burdens and benefits of society will be divided unequally and unfairly—with the people writing the rules ensuring themselves a greater share of the benefits and a lesser share of the burdens of any society. … That’s why we have to include everyone in the decisions that shape our cultures, because even the best of us are blinded by our own interests. If you care about equality, you have to embrace diversity—”
“Respect your privileges and understand your rights.”
“If you want them to talk with you “on equal terms” you need to A. Learn to speak and B. Become equal.”
“That which is not just is not law.”
“All white people, I think, are implicated in these things so long as we participate in America in a normal way and attempt to go on leading normal lives while any one race is being cheated and tormented. But I now believe that we will probably go on leading our normal lives, and will go on participating in our nation in a normal way, unless there comes a time where Negroes can compel us by methods of extraordinary pressure to interrupt our pleasure.”
“Here, poverty in the United States is a choice. Stagnant middle-class incomes are a choice. Technology-fueled mass unemployment is a choice. Racism is a choice. The patriarchy is a choice. This is not to discount how deeply entrenched existing policies, interests, and tendencies are - but to recognize that while they might be entrenched, they are not immutable.”
“I belong to a culture that includes Proust, Henry James, Tchaikovsky, Cole Porter, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Marlowe, Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Tennessee Williams, Byron, E.M. Forster, Lorca, Auden, Francis Bacon, James Baldwin, Harry Stack Sullivan, John Maynard Keynes, Dag Hammarskjold… These are not invisible men. Poor Bruce. Poor frightened Bruce. Once upon a time you wanted to be a soldier. Bruce, did you know that an openly gay Englishman was as responsible as any man for winning the Second World War? His name was Alan Turing and he cracked the Germans Enigma code so the Allies knew in advance what the Nazis were going to do — and when the war was over he committed suicide he was so hounded for being gay. Why don t they teach any of this in the schools? If they did, maybe he wouldn t have killed himself and maybe you wouldn t be so terrified of who you are. The only way we ll have real pride is when we demand recognition of a culture that isn t just sexual. It s all there—all through history we ve been there; but we have to claim it, and identify who was in it, and articulate what s in our minds and hearts and all our creative contributions to this earth. And until we do that, and until we organize ourselves block by neighborhood by city by state into a united visible community that fights back, we re doomed. That s how I want to be defined: as one of the men who fought the war.”
“I think that s what the people who change our lives always do. They give us permission to be the person we secretly really long to be but maybe don t feel we re allowed to be.”
“Unlike wealth, poverty of intellect is equally distributed between the sexes and among the races.”