Joseph Brodsky Quotes

Whoever is content with the world, and who profits from its lack of justice, does not want to change it.

Obviously, I have certain policy positions that I push and advocate for that would benefit people dealing in a system that breeds inequality and makes life more difficult for people.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

There are forms of oppression and domination which become invisible - the new normal.

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.

The reason for the slow progress of the world seems to lie in a single fact. Every man is born under the yoke, and grows up beneath the oppressions of his age.

The Reagan program is not working because the program is not fair - and, just as important, because the people themselves know it is not fair.

Year after year, politicians have drafted huge piles of legislation on the assumption that most people are not good. And we know the consequences of that policy: inequality, loneliness and mistrust.

It is an understatement to say that in this society injustices abound: in truth, it is itself the quintessence of injustice.

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

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

It's funny how people who ain't never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. It's funny that the people who have their foot on our neck are telling us, 'Get up. What's wrong with you?'

All oppression creates a state of war.

Truth is on the side of the oppressed.

I mean, the unfair treatment of women and black people and Indians and other groups, that's real. Mistreatment of other people because 'I'm better than you are' is such a sad part of the world.

I'm tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.

A fair observer only has to ask: If there is violence, who profits?

I do not like to get the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

You can't comfort the afflicted with afflicting the comfortable.

Inequality is a terrible waste of time, a waste of people's resources.

As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change.

Every social injustice is not only cruel, but it is economic waste.

The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives.

I don't hate nobody. I hate certain conditions that are inflicted upon the people - and they're helpless with it.