Mos Def Quotes

Brother! We have, as your friends, fought by your side, and have poured out our blood in your defense, but our arms are now broken. You have grown large. My people have become small, and there are none who take pity on them.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us.

Often the masses are plundered and do not know it.

The poor man looks upon the law as an enemy, not as a friend. For him, the law is always taking something away.

Our family were outsiders, and I've always had a sense of the outsider, the underdog, and a strong sense of justice towards people who are excluded.

I think that children are acutely sensitive to injustice because they live in a world that is absolutely filled with injustice. They have very, very little power, and they are extremely aware of power relations.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

Large numbers of people are broken from the notion that the system is working for people, that the system is just or humane or peaceful.

I am disgusted and worn out with the system that seems to prevail.

Woe to them, that take away the right of the poor.

Our sweat and our blood have fallen on this land to make other men rich. The pilgrimage is a witness to the suffering we have seen for generations

Resentment — that feeling when the modern promise of equality collides with massive disparities of power, education, status and property ownership.

There are people who are victims in life, and I don't think they should be encouraged.

I both love inequality and am terrified of it.

The more that I learn about what's going on, it's really hard to ignore the oppression that people are actually going through.

We have never had a society that was truly just. Some groups have always benefited at the expense of others.

I cannot bear to live where there is so much injustice and I cannot do something about it. What kind of a torturous life is that?

It is impossible for one class to appreciate the wrongs of another.

Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim.

I see myself in all the people in the world who are suffering and who are very badly treated and who are often made to feel that they have no place on this Earth.

Nobody is poor unless he stand in need of justice.

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

It was the short men that caused all the trouble in the world.