The Quotes canon

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Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of THE CONSENT OF THE PEOPLE. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power. — Alexander Hamilton · 1775The vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty. — Alexander Hamilton · 1787All 30 quotes →
Bob Marley4 quotes
Get up, stand up, Stand up for your right. Get up, stand up, Don't give up the fight. — Bob Marley · 1973Don't gain the world and lose your soul, Wisdom is better than silver and gold. — Bob Marley · 1980Get up, stand up Stand up for your rights Get up, stand up Don't give up the fight. — Bob Marley · 1973One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain. — Bob Marley · 1971
Frantz Fanon3 quotes
Leave this Europe where they are never done talking of Man, yet murder men everywhere they find them. — Frantz Fanon · 1961When I search for man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanche of murders. — Frantz Fanon · 1961I am black: I am the incarnation of a complete fusion with the world, an intuitive understanding of the earth, an abandonment of my ego in the heart of the cosmos. — Frantz Fanon · 1952
Jean Rhys3 quotes
I often want to cry. That is the only advantage women have over men-at least they can cry. — Jean Rhys · 1939We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky-and it would be so much less fun if we were... Some must cry so that others may be able to laugh the more heartily. — Jean Rhys · 1939The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still. Like when they say "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end." — Jean Rhys · 1934
C.L.R. James2 quotes
It is Toussaint's supreme merit that while he saw European civilisation as a valuable and necessary thing, and strove to lay its foundations among his people, he never had the illusion that it conferred any moral superiority. He knew French, British, and Spanish imperialists for the insatiable gangsters that they were, that there is no oath too sacred for them to break, no crime, deception, treachery, cruelty, destruction of human life and property which they would not commit against those who could not defend themselves. — C.L.R. James · 1938When history is written as it ought to be written, it is the moderation and long patience of the masses at which men will wonder, not their ferocity. — C.L.R. James · 1938
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing! — Camille Pissarro · 1893
A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. — Fidel Castro · 1961
To see your enemy and know him is part of the complete education of man. — Marcus Garvey · 1923
The adoption of the concept of Black Power is one of the most legitimate and healthy developments in American politics and race relations in our time.... It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to begin to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations and to support those organizations. It is a call to reject the racist institutions and values of this society. — Stokely Carmichael · 1967
One thing that I really like about teaching is that you have to work very hard not to lose the respect of your students. — Tania Bruguera · 2013
The world is what it is. — V.S. Naipaul · 1979