Lujira Cooper > Lujira's Quotes

“You say: I am not free. But I have raised and lowered my arm. Everyone understands that this illogical answer is an irrefutable proof of freedom.”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Man cannot possess anything as long as he fears death. But to him who does not fear it, everything belongs. If there was no suffering, man would not know his limits, would not know himself. ”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Your silence will not protect you.”
― Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches

“There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”
― Audre Lorde

“But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.”
― Audre Lorde

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”
― Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”
― Toni Morrison

“When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.”
― Shirley Chisholm

“The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says: "It's a girl.”
― Shirley Chisholm

“If they don't give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.”
― Shirley Chisholm

“In the end anti-black, anti-female, and all forms of discrimination are equivalent to the same thing: anti-humanism.”
― Shirley Chisholm

“Political organizations are formed to keep the powerful in power. Their first rule is “don’t rock the boat.” If someone makes trouble and you can get him, do it. If you can’t get him, bring him in. Give him some of the action, let him have a taste of power. Power is all anyone wants, and if he has a promise of it as a reward for being good, he’ll be good. Anyone who does not play by those rules is incomprehensible to most politicians.”
― Shirley Chisholm, Unbought And Unbossed

“No matter what men think, abortion is a fact of life. Women have always had them; they always have and they always will. Are they going to have good ones or bad ones? Will the good ones be reserved for the rich, while the poor women go to quacks?”
― Shirley Chisholm, Unbought And Unbossed

“We must reject not only the stereotypes that others hold of us, but also the stereotypes that we hold of ourselves.”
― Shirley Chisholm

“It is true that women have seldom been aggressive in de- manding their rights and so have cooperated in their own enslavement. This was true of the black population for many years. They submitted to oppression, and even condoned it. But women are becoming aware, as blacks did, that they can have equal treatment if they will fight for it, and they are starting to organize. To do it, they have to dare the sanctions that society imposes on anyone who breaks with its traditions. This is hard, and especially hard for women, who are taught not to rebel from infancy, from the time they are first wrapped in pink blankets, the color of their caste.”
― Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed

“Liberty and justice for all" were beautiful words, but the ugly fact was that liberty and justice were only for white males.”
― Shirley Chisholm, Unbought and Unbossed

“What a man can't remember doesn't exist for him.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“I see things and I hear things I do not understand. I'm a skilled, resourceful... vegetable!”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“You're on your own now. You are not helpless. You will find your way.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity

“Opportunities will present themselves. Recognize them, act on them.”
― Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Supremacy

“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn't bother me. It's other people doing the calling that bothers me.”
― Octavia E. Butler

“In order to rise
From its own ashes
A phoenix
First
Must
Burn.”
― Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”
― Audre Lorde

“To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. ”
― James Baldwin

“Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.”
― Frederick Douglass

“Nothing is absolute. Everything changes, everything moves, everything revolves, everything flies and goes away.”
― Frida Kahlo

“Freedom is dangerous but it's precious, too. You can't just throw it away or let it slip away. You can't sell it for bread and pottage.”
― Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Sower