June Jordan Quotes

The effect of dominance is not always the result of an intention to dominate.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

And I particularly like the whole thing of being boss. Boss and employee... It's the slave quality that I find very alluring.

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority!

I always remember I'm the monkey and he's the organ-grinder.

He was in charge of everything and I was to be wherever he wasn’t.

Wild beasts hate nets, and people hate their superiors.

The exercise of authority is odious, and they who know how to govern, leave it in abeyance as much as possible.

It is better to be the slave of a master than to be a slave of a slave.

Everybody is owned by somebody.

When the master has come to do everything through the slave, the slave becomes his master, since he cannot live without him.

Man is more disposed to domination than freedom; and a structure of dominion not only gladdens the eye of the master who rears and protects it, but even its servants are uplifted by the thought that they are members of a whole, which rises high above the life and strength of single generations.

Rulers exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

I'm fed up with being bossed around.

I call the discourse of power any discourse that engenders blame, hence guilt, in its recipient.

Power never turns power down, ever, unless institutionally demanded.

A car is like a mother-in-law - if you let it, it will rule your life.

We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.

The concept of power we admire is power over someone else.

Our schools and colleges are turning out people who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do.

Free election of masters does not abolish the masters or the slaves.

My instincts are always against people who want to fasten some sort of hegemony onto things.

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

Don't talk to me about rules, dear. Wherever I stay I make the goddam rules.

Authority is something from which we are constantly subtracting, of which there remains always a residue, and which we attempt to make smaller and smaller.