Carter G. Woodson Quotes

People in power need to control others in order to maintain power. One of the ways to do that is to take that which is threatening and demonize it.

When a wrong thought is told a thousand times and impressed on one’s brain, one starts feeling the falsehood as truth. Similarly if the mind of slave is hammered of slavery, he starts enjoying his slavery

If one is free at heart, no man-made chains can bind one to servitude, but if one's mind is so manipulated and controlled by the oppressor, then there will be nothing the oppressed can do to scare his powerful masters.

The fear tactic is a tactic that's used by people who want to maintain control, and it's very effective.

It's easier to control people when they're afraid.

Today the function of psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis threatens to become the tool in the manipulation of man.

You keep folks so intimidated. You can give them money, access, but they're still scared. And as long as you're scared, you're on the plantation.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

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

What you're saying is that 'I, the superior elite, will take care of you.' Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can't be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.

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

Why do you all push us around?

To hold a people in oppression you have to convince them first that they are supposed to be oppressed.

Thought, like any parasite, cannot exist without a compliant host.

Shakespeare reveals human nature brilliantly: he shines a light on our instinctive desire to dominate each other.

Women consume, and they must be directed what to consume, or they may identify you as lunch.

It's easy to look at the vampires as a metaphor for any feared or misunderstood group. It's also easy to look at them as a metaphor for a shadow organization that says one thing and has a completely different agenda on their mind, and anybody who gets in their way, they just get rid of them. Does that sound familiar?

Today the tyrant rules not by club or fist, but disguised as a market researcher, he shepherds his flocks in the ways of utility and comfort.

Powerlessness corrupts: absolute powerlessness corrupts absolutely

If you have been put in your place long enough, you begin to act like the place.

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

It would be easier to subjugate the entire universe through force of arms than to subjugate the minds of a single village... .

We lead them to believe that we are in complete control over every aspect of their lives.

The black knows his place, and if not, I'll tell him his place.