Toni Morrison Quotes

The whites, who are educated and civilized, swindle me, and I am not hard to swindle because I do not know how to read and write.

Those who do not read have no advantage over those who cannot read.

My opinion is that he's a swindler and you're a sucker.

It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.

Since you knew they was goin' to cheat you anyway, I recorded under any name with all of 'em.

Power over others is weakness disguised as strength.

The white people brought whiskey into our village, made our people drunk, and cheated them out of their horses, guns, and traps!...I visited all the whites and begged them not to sell whiskey to my people. One of them continued the practice openly. I took a party of my young men, went to his house, took his barrel and broke in the head and turned out the whiskey.

The whites tell us of their enlightened understanding, and the wisdom they have from heaven, at the same time, they cheat us to their hearts’ content. For we are as fools in their eyes, and they say among themselves, the Indians know nothing!

If you do not know how to lie, cheat and steal, turn your attention to politics and learn.

It was a shock to visit a Job Corps camp and see adults who had been through some years of our public education system stare at a blackboard where a teacher was writing CAT or helping them write their own names. In another room men were learning to tell time.

I don't need to show anybody anything other than getting the guy out who is trying to make his money off of me.

Because you took advantage of my disadvantage.

I'm literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal.

You can always cheat an honest man, but it takes more work.

I was a magnet for people who want to take advantage of people like me, who think they're part of this life but they're not.

In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.

Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! All wars are wars among thieves who are too cowardly to fight and who therefore induce the young manhood of the whole world to do the fighting for them.

The parents, the society, the state, the church, the educational system, they all depend on lies. As the child is born they start trapping it into lies. And the child is helpless. He cannot escape his parents, he is utterly dependent. You can exploit his dependence...and it has been exploited down the ages.

Give a clown your finger, and he will take your hand.

Let the gulled fool the toil of war pursue, where bleed the many to enrich the few.

To cheat a man isnothing; but the womanmust have fine parts indeed who cheats a woman!

Don't tell them too much about your soul. They're waiting for just that.

How fondly swindlers coddle their dupes! No mother is as caressing or thoughtful towards her adored child as a merchant in hypocrisy toward his milch-cow.

... pure and intelligent women can be deceived and misled by the baser sort, their very innocence and experience making them credulous and the helpless tools of the guilty and bold.