Brent Jatko > Brent's Quotes

“Arriving at each new city, the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in wait for you in foreign, unpossessed places.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.”
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

“Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like being a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words "soccer" and "neighbor" in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.”
― Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain

“With each replacement of parts, a car slowly becomes Chinese.”
― Mr. Kuniyasu

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance: An Excerpt from Collected Essays, First Series

“You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.”
― Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary

“Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.”
― Malcolm X

“People don't realize how a man's whole life can be changed by one book.”
― Malcolm X

“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.”
― Malcom X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.”
― Malcolm X

“Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.”
― Malcolm X

“The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”
― Malcolm X

“So early in my life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X [Japanese-Language Edition].

“We cannot think of being acceptable to others until we have first proven acceptable to ourselves.”
― Malcolm X

“Truth is on the side of the oppressed.”
― Malcolm X

“If you have no critics you'll likely have no success. ”
― Malcolm X

“If you're not ready to die for it, take the word 'freedom' out of your vocabulary.”
― Malcolm X

“We need more light about each other. Light creates understanding, understanding creates love, love creates patience, and patience creates unity.”
― Malcolm X

“The ability to read awoke inside of me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“Don't be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn't do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn't know what you know today.”
― Malcolm X

“The only way we'll get freedom for ourselves is to identify ourselves with every oppressed people in the world. We are blood brothers to the people of Brazil, Venezuela, Haiti, Cuba -- yes Cuba too.”
― Malcolm X

“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace”
― Malcolm X

“A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.”
― Malcolm X

“Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from
Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“How can you thank a man for giving you what's already yours? How then can you thank him for giving you only part of what is yours?”
― Malcolm X

“I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...”
― Malcolm X

“I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream--I see an American nightmare.”
― Malcolm X

“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so 'safe,' and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid that it is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.”
― Malcolm X, The Autobiography of Malcolm X

“We declare our right on this earth...to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.”
― Malcolm X

“You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”
― Malcolm X