Lizz Wright Quotes

The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves.

I had been fed, in my youth, a lot of old wives' tales about the way men would instantly forsake a beautiful woman to flock around a brilliant one. It is but fair to say that, after getting out in the world, I had never seen this happen." [From a column dated November 17, 1928]

Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of that will by others.

When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.

People are submissive to power, and few of them can be influenced by doctrines of righteousness.

The frontiers are not east or west, north or south, but wherever a man fronts a fact.

Politics is everywhere. It's in your shirt, it's in your pants. It's everywhere.

We ought always to try to influence others for good.

I care what is actually true, even more than what I hope is true.

Take it, and turn to facts my fantasies.

we should think not only of what the leader does to the group, but also of what the group does to the leader.

The media is the message and the messenger, and increasingly a powerful one.

Keep looking below surface appearances. Don't shrink from doing so just because you might not like what you find.

The thing we have to fear in this country, to my way of thinking, is the influence of the organized minorities, because somehow or other the great majority does not seem to organize. They seem to feel that they are going to be effective because of their own strength, but they give no expression of it.

The competition of social power with State power is always disadvantaged, since the State can arrange the terms of competition to suit itself, even to the point of outlawing any exercise of social power whatever in the premises; in other words, giving itself a monopoly.

The more you inspire, the more people will inspire you.

When you have a well developed body and you're confident, you see people bending your way, wanting to be on your side, wanting to do things for you.

Influence must ever be in proportion to property; and it is right it should.

My mission is to see things as they are. Exactly contrary of a mission.

You can't drop concepts. You can only shine a little flashlight on them as you do inquiry, an you see that what you thought was true wasn't. And when the truth is seen, there's nothing you can do to make the lie true for you again.

Be as decent as you can. Don't believe without evidence. Treat things divine with marked respect — don't have anything to do with them. Do not trust humanity without collateral security; it will play you some scurvy trick. Remember that it hurts no one to be treated as an enemy entitled to respect until he shall prove himself a friend worthy of affection. Cultivate a taste for distasteful truths. And, finally, most important of all, endeavor to see things as they are, not as they ought to be.

Praise is the daughter of present power.

What is meant by its nature for the highest and the best, spreads among the lowly people.

We have to really be intentional right now about holding the media accountable, and taking back the discourse and terms of discussion. It's been hijacked.

What is terrible when you seek the truth, is that you find it. You find it, and then you are no longer free to follow the biases of your personal circle, or to accept fashionable clichés.