Quotes by American Authors - Page 42

Happiness is a habit,it’s more than fleeting,more than a disintegrating lozenge.
Brian D'Ambrosio
Worry is a sin because we are taking our eyes off of Christ and His ability to handle a situation. And when we do this, we are no longer able to live a life of faith.
Shelley Hitz
Faith is not the belief that everything will be all right tomorrow, but the belief that I possess the strength to make everything all right today.
Charles F. Glassman
As you consider your next move, practice this definition of trust: the willingness to take steps while simultaneously waiting for “instructions.
Gina Greenlee
When you are loved well, you want more of it. The only reason I believe anyone would not desire to be a disciple of Christ is because they fail to realize just how well loved they are by him. How could you not want to be with someone who loves you well?
Sandra M. Michelle
THE RELIABLE WAY OUT OF OBESITY IS VIA PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. This point has been lost on the hundreds of folks who have railed against my arguments for food addiction in periodicals, so I"m eager to make it here: No one but me put the food in my mouth. Even if I had grown up imprisoned in a crawl space under the basement stairs (I wasn't), even if tragedy has befallen me every 15 minutes since (it hasn't), I"m still responsible for what I eat. If my food is out of control (it was), then I'm responsible for finding, requesting, and accepting the help I need.
Michael Prager
You are responsible for doing what good you can with what you have, and any good is better than none.
Bryant McGill
For of those to whom much is given, much is required
John F Kennedy
Parentified children learn to take responsibility for themselves and others early on. They tend to fade into the woodwork and let others take center stage. This extends into adulthood - adult children may put others' needs before their own. They may have difficulty accepting care and attention.
Kimberlee Roth
A great deal of what I say just leaves me open, I suppose, to a vast amount of misunderstanding. A great deal of what I say is based on an assumption which I hold and don’t always state. You know my fury about people is based precisely on the fact that I consider them to be responsible, moral creatures who so often do not act that way. But I am not surprised when they do. I am not that wretched a pessimist, and I wouldn’t sound the way I sound if I did not expect what I expect from human beings, if I didn’t have some ultimate faith and love, faith in them and love for them. You see, I am a human being too, and I have no right to stand in judgment of the world as though I am not a part of it. What I am demanding of other people is what I am demanding of myself.
James Baldwin
Make good boundaries your goal. They are your right, your responsibility, your greatest source of dignity.
Elaine N. Aron
The mind of Caesar. It is the reverse of most men's. It rejoices in committing itself. To us arrive each day a score of challenges; we must say yes or no to decisions that will set off chains of consequences. Some of us deliberate; some of us refuse the decision, which is itself a decision; some of us leap giddily into the decision, setting our jaws and closing our eyes, which is the sort of decision of despair. Caesar embraces decision. It is as though he felt his mind to be operating only when it is interlocking itself with significant consequences. Caesar shrinks from no responsibility. He heaps more and more upon his shoulders.
Thornton Wilder
I don't have a 'side'—I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else.
Glenn Greenwald
Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.
Noam Chomsky
My only allegiance is to my country.  The success of our country is built on hard work, sacrifice, innovation, integrity, and confidence.  How can you be confident if you can’t get a job?  How can you be confident if the mortgage on your home is higher than your home’s value?  How can you be confident when our elected officials haven’t given us one single idea how to fix this situation? – Jeremy Lyons
Marvin H. McIntyre
Sometimes one man must fight for what he feels is right, even against the majority. Something that is wrong does not change to right just because the majority approves it, ignores it, or the government says it is right. It is still wrong.
Kenneth Eade
It’s an old story, amigo mío. Be careful of those closest to you because they can do the most damage.
Theodore Jerome Cohen
Galton was a world renowned anthropologist back in the nineteenth century, though he was a big overshadowed by his cousin, Charles Darwin.
Hunter Shea
The professor stared straight ahead. He felt Husam's eyes upon him. He clenched his hands together tightly, lest their shaking reveal everything.
Christian F. Burton
He couldn’t jeopardize the saloon because of some silly infatuation with an outlaw. Even one as beautiful as Mariah Ayers.
B.J. Daniels
The door suddenly opened. A leggy young brunette took two steps into the office and stopped short. Her brown eyes widened, she hastily excused herself and turned to leave. Pérez’s jaw dropped as he looked up at her high heels and ankles. He crawled out from under the desk and turned questioningly to his partner. Thorne didn't hesitate. He took one swift stride from behind, clamped a hand tightly over her mouth, and pulled her back into the room, disregarding her wildly flailing legs and frantic attempts to claw his hands away. He shut the door with a backward thrust of his foot. "What do we do now?" Pérez whined. "Observe." Thorne spoke calmly, as would a professor demonstrating a familiar operation to a beginner. Using both hands, he briskly snapped her neck. She stopped struggling.
Clark Zlotchew
While stationed in Fort Jackson, I experienced racial prejudice for the first time and came to the understanding that humans are not born with prejudice, but learn prejudice. Back home in South Dakota, I only knew one black American. The Scandinavians in my community treated him just like any other Swede; my family considered him a friend. My parents taught me, and I believed that all men are equal because God created all men in His image.One day during a week end furlough, I boarded a crowded city bus. As I walked down the aisle, I looked for an open seat. Looking towards the rear of the bus, I noticed three huge, young black men sitting on a bench in the back. I decided to squeeze onto the bench with them. As I sat down, a woman said in a very loud voice, "What is that white soldier doing in our part of the bus?"Neither my life experiences nor my education prepared me for what I experienced walking the streets of Fort Jackson. I saw water fountains for whites only, barbershops for blacks only, and separation for most aspects of Southern living. I discovered that the feelings of prejudice ran deeply amongst many of the people that we encountered. In fact, the blacks even trained separately from the whites during our military preparation, even though we all worked towards defending the United States of America.
Oliver Omanson
Will: 'Singing the praises of our fair city? We treat you well here, don't we, James? I doubt I'd have that kind of luck in Shanghai. What do you call us there again?'Jem: 'Yang guizi ... foreign devils.
Cassandra Clare
The trick to realize that the boys who talk so much about being rejected that it seems like the’re proud of it aren’t necessarily sweeter or more sensitive than the Bababooey-spouting frat bullies who line up at clubs like SkyBar to run game on girls they want to date rape. There are plenty of nerds who fear women and aren’t sensitive, despite their marketing; they just dislike women in a new, exciting way. Timid racists aren’t sensitive because they lock their car doors when they see a black person on the street. They’re just too scared to get out of the car and shout the “N” word. Fear can be the result of admiration, or it can be a symptom of contempt. When I see squeamish guys passing over qualified women when they’re hiring for a job, or becoming tongue tied when a girl crashes their all-boy conversation at a party, I don’t give them credit for being awestruck. They’re reacting to the intimidating female as an intruder, an alien, and somebody they can’t relate to. It’s not a compliment to be made invisible.
Julie Klausner
We could choose to be a nation that extends care, compassion, and concern to those who are locked up and locked out or headed for prison before they are old enough to vote. We could seek for them the same opportunities we seek for our own children; we could treat them like one of “us.” We could do that. Or we can choose to be a nation that shames and blames its most vulnerable, affixes badges of dishonor upon them at young ages, and then relegates them to a permanent second-class status for life. That is the path we have chosen, and it leads to a familiar place.
Michelle Alexander
Beneath the armor of skin/and/bone/and/mindmost of our colors are amazingly the same.
Aberjhani
Trayvon Martin, at the most, seems only to have been guilty of being himself.
Aberjhani
If anyone thinks interracial "anything" is a big deal, they're probably inbred.
M.B. Dallocchio
...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality.The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege.In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
Tim Wise
Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.
Tim Wise
Right now I'm thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery, another was emancipation. It's a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy - and it was. But the way it was done led to tragedy, turning four million people loose with no jobs or trades or learning. And then in 1877 for a few electoral votes, just abandoning them entirely. A huge amount of pain and trouble resulted. Everybody in America is still paying for it.
Shelby Foote
And all Negroes at some period of their lives there is that yearning for a sense of group unity that is the yearning of men for a flag: for a unity that cannot be compromised, that cannot be bought; that is conscious of itself, of its strength, that is militant.
Ralph Ellison
Unfortunately, 'post racism' is also a myth, like unicorns and black people who survive to the end of a horror movie.
Justin Simien
They've been practicing racism so long, it's perfect.
Darnell Lamont Walker
Okay. I’m not a white male. At least, not predominantly so. And as I mentioned before, I’m in an environment right now where race is really important. See, Chinese men are not that physically intimidating. We’re not that tall. We’re not that built. We have exactly one thing going for us in a fight — that our opponent recognizes that there’s a possibility, no matter how remote, that we might know kung-fu.
Phillip Andrew Bennett Low
Linnie. And this Winnie.” They wore identical smiles, their bright black eyes sparked with curiosity. “Are you the doctor?”t“No, I’m just volunteering.”t“I knowed that, too.” Winnie gave her an exaggerated shake of the head. “Girls is never the doctor. They’s the nurses.”t“Oh no, what about Dr. Clare? Huh? The lady doctor who took care of Grammy in the hospital when she broke her hip bone?” Linnie asked.t“Yeah, but she was a white lady. They can be doctors.” Winnie looked at Lucy. “Right? There are white lady doctors. I seen ‘em.”tLucy felt her eyes go wide. Were there children who still believed your gender or color dictated your career? “There are white lady doctors, black lady doctors, white man doctors, black man doctors.”tThey stared at her. tShe thought for a moment. “And there are white man nurses and black man nurses, too.”t“Now you’re just bein’ silly,” Linnie said and let out a laugh.
Mary Jane Hathaway
The men her girlfriends dated were too often angry and muttering about oppression. One of the reasons she took to Skeet later in life was that he never went to that place; he believed with a firm positivity that he didn't need to waste time resenting real or imagined social constructs because he would always be ahead of them. The individual, not the people, was responsible for success or failure.
Jeff Hobbs
The city of Paris, France, became a place of refuge for biracial Americans during slavery and at the time of the Harlem Renaissance for black musicians, fine artists, writers and others seeking opportunities to practice their craft free from American racism.
Sandra L. West
Some of us make it out. But the game is played with loaded dice. I wish I had known more, and I wished I had known it sooner.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
From the day we touched these stolen shores, he'd explain to anyone who'd listen, they infected our minds. They deployed their phrenologists, their backward Darwinists, and forged a false Knowledge to keep us down. But against this demonology, there were those who battled back. Universities scorned them. Compromised professors scoffed at their names. So they published themselves and hawked their Knowledge at street fairs, churches, and bazaars.For their efforts, they were forgotten. Their great works languished out of print, while those they sought to save grew fat on integration and amnesia.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
I remember reading article about the woman in that Oakland neighborhood who lost all her children to violence. I wondered why'd she keep living there after the first one was killed. Didn't she care about the others?Today, I zoomed out and wondered why I'm still in America.
Darnell Lamont Walker
It's a myth that people who live in cities are naturally more open-minded, more accepting and tolerant of difference. The truth is, whatever people are, be it saints or bigots, they simply are these things, and the city - by smashing all those different kinds of people up against one another - just makes people's tolerance (or lack of it) all that much more pronounced.
Suzanne Rindell
There is a gaping hole in the history of the Holocaust. Between Adolf Hitler and Joseph Mengele there was a hierarchy of scientists whom were responsible for writing the infamous racial legislation of the Third Reich. These scientists, doctors, and legislators enjoyed prestigious positions in the various institutions within Hitler's Germany. To be more precise, many of the ghastly experiments credited to Mengele were ordered by this group of high-ranking scientists and doctors. Mengele was following their orders, yet many of these German doctors and scientists were set free after being captured by the Allies. Previously unpublished manuscripts, correspondence, and conveniently forgotten publications reveal professional and political relationships as well as shared scientific convictions between high-profile American Progressives, British Fabian Socialists, and their German counterparts. The mounting evidence points to the long-standing designs and machinations of "scientific racism", a still poorly understood aspect of history. This book documents the hundred year trajectory of the history of "scientific racism" from its initial intentions to create "a race of masters" to the Holocaust, which resulted from Hitler's conviction to create a "master race". These scientific prejudices and political dogmas are as relevant today as they were leading up to WWII. A thorough understanding of the origins of this movement is in order.
A.E. Samaan
A "racist" thinks themselves better than other races. An "elitist" thinks they are better than everyone.
A.E. Samaan
Dear Police:You can't protect me and be scared of me.
Darnell Lamont Walker
Black people are either threats or entertainment.
Darnell Lamont Walker
It is in racists' best interest to maintain white supremacy at all costs. They will defend it with their lives, but ONLY after they've defended it with ours.
Darnell Lamont Walker
You don’t understand,” my dad said. “They stop you.” “Who? What are you talking about?” my mom asked. “That’s why I was being cautious.” “Who stops you?” “The police. If you’re white, or maybe Oriental, they let you drive however you want. But if you’re not, they stop you.” “Who told you that?” “The guys at the diner. That’s what they say. If you’re black or if you’re brown, they automatically think you’ve done something wrong.” “Rafa, that’s ridiculous. We’ve lived here for fifteen years. We’re citizens.” “The police don’t know that by looking at us. They see a brown face through the windshield and boom! Sirens!” My mom shook her head. “That’s what that was about?” “I didn’t want to give them reason to stop me.” “You were driving like a blind man, Rafa. That will give them reason to stop you.” “Everybody else just has to obey the law. We have to obey it twice as well.” “But that doesn’t mean you have to go twice as slow as everybody else!” The light turned green and my dad brought the car out of first. We cruised under the overpass, a shadow draping over the car like a blanket. “Next time, just try to blend in with everyone else and you’ll be fine,” my mom offered. “The way of the world,” my dad said. “What?” my mom asked as we emerged back into the sunlight. “Just trying to blend in. That’s the way of the world.” “Well, that’s the way of America, at least,” my mom said.
Cristina Henriquez
Black bodies have become ornamental, haven't they?
Darnell Lamont Walker
We must tell the world that even though we elected a bigot, bigotry will not prevail.
DaShanne Stokes
...out of the counterfeiting of the black American's identity [in blackface minstrelsy] there arises a profound doubt in the white man's mind as to the authenticity of his own image of himself. He, after all, went into the business when he refused the king's shilling and revolted. He had put on a mask of his own, as it were...For the ex-colonials, the declaration of an American identity meant the assumption of a mask, and it imposed not only the discipline of national self-consciousness, it gave Americans an ironic awareness of the joke that always lies between appearance and reality, between the discontinuity of social tradition and that sense of the past which clings to the mind. And perhaps even an awareness of the joke that society is man's creation, not God's. Americans began their revolt from the English fatherland when they dumped the tea into Boston Harbor, masked as Indians, and the mobility of the society created in this limitless space has encouraged the use of the mask for good and evil ever since.
Ralph Ellison
A bunch of Latinas at Pitzer College decided to let white girls know that they shouldn’t wear hoops anymore, because that’s appropriating a style.... I’ve never worn hoop earrings for the purpose of “feeling ethnic,” nor have I ever associated hoop earrings with a certain culture. They’ve always been an accessory I like. It’s really as simple as that....I can’t wear hoops because I didn’t “create the culture as a coping mechanism for marginalization”? I can’t wear hoops because I’m not a feminist? I can’t wear hoops because some Latinas can’t afford it? I can’t wear hoops because I refuse to buy into your hypersensitive BS?....Does anyone else realize how completely ridiculous that sounds?
Hannah Bleau
Saying something is 'politically correct' is often a way of dismissing the voices of the oppressed.
DaShanne Stokes
Vagrancy laws and other laws defining activities such as "mischief" and "insulting gestures" as crimes were enforced vigorously against blacks. The aggressive enforcement of these criminal offenses opened up an enormous market for convict leasing.
Michelle Alexander
WHITE NATIONALISTS & BLACK LIVES MATTER: The harder you swing the pendulum one way, the more violently it will swing back.
A.E. Samaan
To be born into, to go to school, to study, to learn, to play, to worship, to love, to work and to die in segregation and not have one single person who loved, mentored or guided me convey that there was any loss.
Robin DiAngelo
We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.
Lydia Maria Francis Child
The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that's why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.
Michelle Alexander
Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others...
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Now I have very little respect for the electoral system in the United States. I could have respected it in the early days, when the country was small and we had small population. The system that we have in the United States was set up at a time when the total population was the population of Tennessee. We've stretched it to try to make it work for different kind of problems and in stretching and adapting it, we've lost its meaning. We still have the form but not the meaning. There's a lot of things that we have to look at critically that might have been useful at one time that are no longer useful I think there's some good in everything. There's some bad in everything. But there's so little good in some things that you know for practical purposes they're useless. They're beyond salvation. There's so much good in some things, even though there's bad, that we build on that.
Myles Horton