Dovide

“I'm an animal, you can see that I'm an animal. I have no words, they haven't taught me the words; I don't know how to think, those bastards didn't let me learn how to think. But if you really are-all powerful, all knowing, all understanding-figure it out! Look into my soul, I know-everything you need is in there. It has to be. Because I've never sold my soul to anyone! It's mine, it's human! Figure out yourself what I want because I know it can't be bad! The hell with it all, I just can't think of a thing other than those words of his- HAPPINESS, FREE, FOR EVERYONE, AND LET NO ONE BE FORGOTTEN!”
― Olena Bormashenko, Roadside Picnic

“That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you. Dirty you so bad you couldn’t like yourself anymore. Dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn’t think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. The best thing she was, was her children. Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing—the part of her that was clean. No undreamable dreams about whether the headless, feetless torso hanging in the tree with a sign on it was her husband or Paul A; whether the bubbling-hot girls in the colored-school fire set by patriots included her daughter; whether a gang of whites invaded her daughter’s private parts, soiled her daughter’s thighs and threw her daughter out of the wagon. She might have to work the slaughterhouse yard, but not her daughter.”
― Toni Morrison, Beloved

“There’s a tradition associated with the prophet,” he says.

“When you’ve seen an injustice occur you should try to change it with your hands. If you can’t change it with your hands then you should try to adjust it with your tongue. You should speak out about it. If you can’t do that, you should at least feel the injustice in your heart.”
― Chris Hedges, A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine

“Every subsequent generation that has turned to the Roman Republic for inspiration has revealed something of their own character in the lessons they have sought to learn”
― David M. Gwynn, The Roman Republic: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions) by David M. Gwynn