Gerda Lerner Quotes

It seems we're not only uninformed about our present, we're ignorant of our past.

We are raising students in America who are, by and large, historically illiterate.

The thing that has made the so-called Negro in America fail, more than any other thing, is your, my, lack of knowledge concerning history. We know less about history than anything else.

We constantly see surveys that reveal this ignorance, especially among our high school students,78 percent of whom, in a recent nationwide multiple-choice test, identified Abraham Lincoln as 'a kind of lobster.' That's right: more than three quarters of our nation's youth could not correctly identify the man who invented the telephone.

Knowledge is the raw material of production and value in this age. It used to be that the main difference between people in our society was between those who have more and those who have less. Today, however, the difference is between those who know more and those who know less.

A massive new penal system has emerged in the past few decades - a penal system unprecedented in world history. It is a system driven almost entirely by race and class.

Rising inequality isn’t about who has the knowledge; it’s about who has the power.

The details of our struggle to survive and prosper, in what has been a difficult and sometimes bitter relationship with a system of laws and practices that deny us access to the tools necessary for productive and industrious life, are available to any serious student of history or sociology.

The darkness, of which the historians complain, is essentially the darkness of their own ignorance.

While it is undeniable that many have been driven to immorality and crime by the need to survive, it is equally evident that the possession of a significant surplus of material goods has never been a guarantee against covetousness, rapacity and the infinite variety of vice and pain which spring from such passions. Indeed, it could be argued that the unrelenting compulsion of those who already have much to acquire even more has generated greater injustice, immorality and wretchedness than the cumulative effect of the struggles of the severely underprivileged to better their lot.

I am truly grateful that faith enables me to move past the question of 'Why?'

The human condition can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all experiences are of the past, all decisions are about the future. It is the great task of human knowledge to bridge this gap and to find those patterns in the past which can be projected into the future as realistic images.

In England the rich own the poor and the men own the women.

Keep in mind, just because you don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that one does not exist. You simply haven’t discovered it yet.

South Africa has faced many problems in the past. You would understand those problems if you understood the history of the struggle to get rid of Apartheid and the struggle to establish democracy.

We still have gaps that are rooted in gender inequality. Certainly we have discrimination against the LGBT community.

The Great Famine is a period of our history that we need to know in great detail in order to understand its continuing impact on us as a people. Its causes were complex. We can't apportion blame simplistically but rather [must] understand that blame has to be shared in different areas and levels of society. It was the very poorest of the poor, the small tenants and cottiers, who really suffered. Others were less affected. But most of all I welcomed the commemoration because it was a moment to look into our past and realize the courage and resilience of those who survived.

If you know nothing, it could be like an enemy in a way. I think that's the way I felt when I was young.

Some people think that poor people are lazy. Actually, it takes a lot of work to survive when you are dirt-poor.

There are far too many men in politics and not enough elsewhere.

The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present.

Homeless people's dogs are more knowledgeable than dogs in Beverly Hills. Why? Because they explore, they move forward, they go through the ups and downs in life. A dog in a wealthy environment, there is no downs except what he lives.

Most of the time you need something to fight against. If something is bothering me, then the only way to get past it is to work through it.

Women are the world's most underused resource.