Privilege Quotes
Quotes tagged as "privilege"
Showing 1-30 of 624

“Oh, I wouldn't mind, Hazel Grace. It would be a privilege to have my heart broken by you.”
― The Fault in Our Stars
― The Fault in Our Stars

“Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them.”
― Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?
― Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She?

“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible鈥� except by getting off his back.”
― What Then Must We Do?
― What Then Must We Do?

“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
― Letter from the Birmingham Jail
― Letter from the Birmingham Jail

“Responsibility I believe accrues through privilege. People like you and me have an unbelievable amount of privilege and therefore we have a huge amount of responsibility. We live in free societies where we are not afraid of the police; we have extraordinary wealth available to us by global standards. If you have those things, then you have the kind of responsibility that a person does not have if he or she is slaving seventy hours a week to put food on the table; a responsibility at the very least to inform yourself about power. Beyond that, it is a question of whether you believe in moral certainties or not.”
―
―

“When we identify where our privilege intersects with somebody else's oppression, we'll find our opportunities to make real change.”
― So You Want to Talk About Race
― So You Want to Talk About Race

“White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost.”
― Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race
― Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

“This is the thing: If you have the option to not think about or even consider history, whether you learned it right or not, or whether it even deserves consideration, that鈥檚 how you know you鈥檙e on board the ship that serves hors d鈥檕euvres and fluffs your pillows, while others are out at sea, swimming or drowning, or clinging to little inflatable rafts that they have to take turns keeping inflated, people short of breath, who鈥檝e never even heard of the words hors d鈥檕euvres or fluff. Then someone from up on the yacht says, "It's too bad those people down there are lazy, and not as smart and able as we are up here, we who have built these strong, large, stylish boats ourselves, we who float the seven seas like kings." And then someone else on board says something like, "But your father gave you this yacht, and these are his servants who brought the hors d'oeuvres." At which point that person gets tossed overboard by a group of hired thugs who'd been hired by the father who owned the yacht, hired for the express purpose of removing any and all agitators on the yacht to keep them from making unnecessary waves, or even referencing the father or the yacht itself. Meanwhile, the man thrown overboard begs for his life, and the people on the small inflatable rafts can't get to him soon enough, or they don't even try, and the yacht's speed and weight cause an undertow. Then in whispers, while the agitator gets sucked under the yacht, private agreements are made, precautions are measured out, and everyone quietly agrees to keep on quietly agreeing to the implied rule of law and to not think about what just happened. Soon, the father, who put these things in place, is only spoken of in the form of lore, stories told to children at night, under the stars, at which point there are suddenly several fathers, noble, wise forefathers. And the boat sails on unfettered.”
― There There
― There There

“History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.”
― The Mis-Education of the Negro
― The Mis-Education of the Negro

“Being privileged doesn't mean that you are always wrong and people without privilege are always right. It means that there is a good chance you are missing a few very important pieces of the puzzle.”
― So You Want to Talk About Race
― So You Want to Talk About Race

“Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.”
―
―

“To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You鈥檙e everywhere you look, you鈥檙e the standard against which everyone else is measured. You鈥檙e like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a 鈥渨oman doctor鈥� or they will say they went to see 鈥渢he doctor.鈥� People will tell you they have a 鈥済ay colleague鈥� or they鈥檒l tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a 鈥淏lack friend,鈥� but when that same person simply mentions a 鈥渇riend,鈥� everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn鈥檛 have the word 鈥渨oman鈥� or 鈥済ay鈥� or 鈥渕inority鈥� in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses 鈥渓iterature,鈥� 鈥渉istory鈥� or 鈥減olitical science.鈥�
This invisibility is political.”
― Privilege: A Reader
This invisibility is political.”
― Privilege: A Reader

“Life is a spread of surprises and it is both a privilege and a challenge to respond to things and events, and find the right answers to prickly questions. In this process, however, it might be wise to change first our perception and our way of looking at things, before persistently changing the very things and altering their hallmark. (鈥淟ife out there 鈥�)”
―
―

“Huck [Finn] and Tom [Sawyer] represent two viable models of the American Character. They exist side by side in every American and every American action. America is, and always has been, undecided about whether it will be the United States of Tom or the United States of Huck. The United States of Tom looks at misery and says: Hey, I didn't do it. It looks at inequity and says: All my life I have busted my butt to get where I am, so don't come crying to me. Tom likes kings, codified nobility, unquestioned privilege. Huck likes people, fair play, spreading the truck around. Whereas Tom knows, Huck wonders. Whereas Huck hopes, Tom presumes. Whereas Huck cares, Tom denies. These two parts of the American Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the nation, and come to think of it, these two parts of the World Psyche have been at war since the beginning of the world, and the hope of the nation and of the world is to embrace the Huck part and send the Tom part back up the river, where it belongs.”
― The Braindead Megaphone
― The Braindead Megaphone

“Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhD鈥檚, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.”
― Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism
― Homegrown: Engaged Cultural Criticism

“I came to the conclusion a while ago that there is nothing romantic or supernatural about loving someone: Love is the privilege of being responsible for another. It was, for a time, what kept me going: Each morning, for a little while, I got to feel the weight of the yoke on my back as I pulled the ancient cart of my species.”
― Zombicorns
― Zombicorns

“Why are you not smarter? It's only the rich who can't afford to be smart. They're compromised. They got locked years ago into privilege. They have to protect their belongings. No one is meaner than the rich. Trust me. But they have to follow the rules of their shitty civilised world. They declare war, they have honour, and they can't leave. But you two. We three. We're free.”
― The English Patient
― The English Patient

“It's easy to fictionalize an issue when you're not aware of the many ways in which you are privileged by it.”
― Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation
― Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation

“The first time he had taken the massa to one of these "high-falutin' to-dos," as Bell called them, Kunta had been all but overwhelmed by conflicting emotions: awe, indignation, envy, contempt, fascination, revulsion鈥攂ut most of all a deep loneliness and melancholy from which it took him almost a week to recover. He couldn't believe that such incredible wealth actually existed, that people really lived that way. It took him a long time, and a great many more parties, to realize that they didn't live that way, that it was all strangely unreal, a kind of beautiful dream the white folks were having, a lie they were telling themselves: that goodness can come from badness, that it's possible to be civilized with one another without treating as human beings those whose blood, sweat, and mother's milk made possible the life of privilege they led.”
― Roots: The Saga of an American Family
― Roots: The Saga of an American Family

“Feminism as a career is the province of the privileged; it's hard to read dozens of books on feminist theory while you're working in a hair salon or engaged in the kinds of jobs that put food on the table but also demand a lot of physical and mental energy.”
― Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
― Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

“I had the privilege of being able to choose, or at least have the opportunity to work at, being anything but an actor.”
―
―

“Of course he would think the whole glittering universe existed to spin anything he wanted out of stardust. He was a man, and a rich one, and these together made him believe the planets and moons orbited around the single point of his desires.”
― Wild Beauty
― Wild Beauty

“My problems aren't invalid. Not to me. Just because they aren't life altering, life-threatening, doesn't mean they don't make me feel bad. I wake up with them every morning, carry them around all day like a lead backpack, and I fall asleep with them at night. They're real, and they're mine. I know I'm lucky. I know that. But it doesn't change how I feel.”
― The Return
― The Return

“If love is the greatest gift of all-and I believe it is- then the greatest privilege of all is to be able to love someone.”
― An Invisible Thread
― An Invisible Thread

“If you happen to be white in a white country; pretty according to the dictates of fashion; rich in a country where money is adored, it鈥檚 almost impossible to grow up and to grow up honest inside. It is almost impossible. Most people don鈥檛 grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging. But to grow up, to take responsibility for the time you take up, and the space you occupy, to honor every living person for his or her humanity, that is to grow up.”
―
―

“Stop thinking about class, she'd say. Like a rich man telling a poor man to stop thinking about money.”
― The Collector
― The Collector
All Quotes
|
My Quotes
|
Add A Quote
Browse By Tag
- Love Quotes 99.5k
- Life Quotes 78k
- Inspirational Quotes 74.5k
- Humor Quotes 44.5k
- Philosophy Quotes 30.5k
- Inspirational Quotes Quotes 27.5k
- God Quotes 26.5k
- Truth Quotes 24k
- Wisdom Quotes 24k
- Romance Quotes 23.5k
- Poetry Quotes 22.5k
- Life Lessons Quotes 20.5k
- Death Quotes 20.5k
- Happiness Quotes 19k
- Quotes Quotes 18.5k
- Hope Quotes 18k
- Faith Quotes 18k
- Inspiration Quotes 17k
- Spirituality Quotes 15.5k
- Religion Quotes 15k
- Motivational Quotes 15k
- Writing Quotes 15k
- Relationships Quotes 15k
- Life Quotes Quotes 14.5k
- Love Quotes Quotes 14.5k
- Success Quotes 13.5k
- Time Quotes 12.5k
- Motivation Quotes 12.5k
- Science Quotes 12k
- Motivational Quotes Quotes 11.5k