Quotes by Social Critics

The new crimes that the US and Israel were committing in Gaza as 2009 opened do not fit easily into any standard category—except for the category of familiarity.
Noam Chomsky
In the case of Tunisia, it was indeed this single act that sparked what had been long-standing active protest movements and moved them forward. But that's not so unusual. Let's look at our own history. Take the civil rights movement. There had been plenty of concern and activism about violent repression of blacks in the South, and it took a couple of students sitting in at a lunch counter to really set it off. Small acts can make a big difference when there is a background of concern, understanding, and preliminary activism.
Noam Chomsky
He who makes fun of a short and fat man’s weight is much less cruel than he who makes fun of his height.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are all 'foreigners' to [the remainder of: the human race minus our countrymen].
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Interviews were invented to make journalism less passive. Instead of waiting for something to happen, journalists ask someone what should or could happen.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
People who wear G-strings suffer from indecision.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The blues is relevant today because when we look down through the corridors of time, the black American interpretation of tragicomic hope in the face of dehumanizing hate and oppression will be seen as the only kind of hope that has any kind of maturity in a world of overwhelming barbarity and bestiality. That barbarity is found not just in the form of terrorism but in the form of the emptiness of our lives - in terms of the wasted human potential that we see around the world. In this sense, the blues is a great democratic contribution of black people to world history.
Cornel West
In his school, Bertrand Russell thought it was better if they had the sex, so they could give their undivided attention to mathematics, which was the main thing.
Paul Goodman
In the Bible, a woman was made from a man. In real life, a man is made from a woman.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Expensive clothing is a poor man’s attempt to appear prosperous.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Though you can get smart from reading everything that a smart person writes, you cannot get famous from reading about everything that a famous person does or is said to have done.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Social networking platforms drove man closer to those in neighboring continents, while driving him further apart from those in his neighborhood.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not tweet to be retweeted.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not unfollow someone, merely because they stopped following you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Thou shalt not follow someone, merely because they are following you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The religious worry about life after death at the expense of life before death.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A paparazzi is merely an extremely nosy nobody with a camera—and bills to pay.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To be called insane: challenge convention. To be called possessed: challenge religion.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
People who smoke would have probably been regarded as fools or insane, if only a percentage of people who smoke smoked.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Religion makes people kill each other. Science supplies them with weapons.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most people do not have a problem with you thinking for yourself, as long as your conclusions are the same as or at least compatible with their beliefs.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Being rich is an untalented artist’s consolation prize.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
We are slaves whose masters are dead. For we are mostly controlled by doctrines which were established centuries heretofore.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Generally, people need less than a quarter of what they want.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A man’s bank balance is the new penis size.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most people say that Shakespeare rocked merely because most people say that Shakespeare rocked.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Retro is a symptom of a generation that is too lazy to innovate.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
In some cases, people with a body (whose size) they did not long for are victims of having a bank balance (whose size) they longed for.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Whenever they are given the choice, some people choose a bath over a shower; they, too, would like to do their bit to waste water.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A man who lives long enough will be a boy twice.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
To be better equipped for the tests that the year will bring — read a textbook. To prepare for the tests that life will bring — read a book.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
With homework, school prepares students for overtime. With reports, it prepares them for payday.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum....
Noam Chomsky
A question is far more subversive, biblically, than a statement.
Os Guinness
I have tried to be a man of letters in love with ideas in order to be a wiser and more loving person, hoping to leave the world just a little better than I found it.
Cornel West
Capitalism has turned human beings into commodities. To the owner of a restaurant: the cook and a bag of potatoes are equally important.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The times are too difficult and the crisis too severe to indulge in schadenfreude. Looking at it in perspective, the fact that there would be a financial crisis was perfectly predictable: its general nature, if not its magnitude. Markets are always inefficient.
Noam Chomsky
Love songs are nothing without exaggeration.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A broke man’s lover doesn’t feel ‘loved’ on her Birthday, Christmas, and, on Valentine’s Day.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Mr. Right' is usually two or eight men.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Nobody enjoys the company of others as intensely as someone who usually avoids the company of others.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.
Noam Chomsky
Not all ‘whites’ are racists. Not all racists are ‘white.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Hamas is regularly described as 'Iranian-backed Hamas, which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel.' One will be hard put to find something like 'democratically elected Hamas, which has long been calling for a two-state settlement in accord with the international consensus'—blocked for over 30 years by the US and Israel. All true, but not a useful contribution to the Party Line, hence dispensable.
Noam Chomsky
Not everyone who has helped or is helping you wanted or wants to help you.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The more civilized people are, the more honorable working hard is to them. As a result, the more civilized we get, the less we live.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Schooling is a manufacturing process whereby the raw material called curious boys is turned into products called obedient men.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
The office’ is a cemetery of dreams.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Weekends are an employee’s parole.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Granted, not all uneducated women are prostitutes, and, not all prostitutes are uneducated. However, where building a family is employment, an uneducated woman's womb is her diploma.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
School programs the schooled to type a CV. Life inspires the unschooled to type a business plan.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Old Age homes are civilization's dumpsites for human beings who it cannot exploit further.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A diploma is a piece of paper that is used to acquire another piece of paper: an employment contract.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
If working-hours were natural, then employed men would only get erections between 5 p.m. and 9 a.m. … during the week.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
A celebrity's body is an advertiser's canvas.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Weekends are life’s gift to those who hate their jobs.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
An education system is best belittled when the so-called educated gets hired by a company that’s owned by a so-called dropout.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
School is a factory where the raw material called student is turned into a product called employee.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Most self-employed people remain slaves to the employed’s working hours.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
Self-employment killed the weekend.
Mokokoma Mokhonoana