John Henrik Clarke Quotes

All power is fast getting into the hands of the very lowest people.

You don't fight injustice by asking to become part of the system that committed the injustice against you in the first place. That's like a freed slave striving to become a slave owner.

The oppressed never free themselves - they do not have the necessary strengths.

As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

Progress is always relative: to the oppressed, it can only be viewed as an all or nothing deal - if oppression continues, even in a modified form, then the system must still be attacked until that injustice is eradicated.

A ruling intelligentsia, whether in Europe, Asia or Africa, treats the masses as raw material to be experimented on, processed, and wasted at will.

Only powerful people have liberty.

The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated.

In a change of masters the poor change nothing except their master's name.

Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don't, why should we? They talk about people and the proletariat; I talk about the suckers and the mugs. It's the same thing.

The value systems of those with access to power and of those far removed from such access cannot be the same. The viewpoint of the privileged is unlike that of the underprivileged.

Who Rebels? Who rises in arms? Rarely the slave, but almost always the oppressor turned slave.

What we really need to be understanding is that all of these things matter and they all stem from the fact that certain people live with power and authority and they want to maintain it.

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

We happen to be the vanguard of that revolutionary struggle because we are the most dispossessed.

For a free country to continue thriving, there have to be regular reforms, because any society, any economy that stays in place, you're going to see repeated attempts to exploit the openings for twisting policy to the advantage of those who already have wealth and power.

The oppressed, having internalized the image of the oppressor and adopted his guidelines, are fearful of freedom.

Revolution applies a local anaesthetic to one class of society and operates on the other.

The real problem is that the way that power is given out in our society pits us against each other.

'The Magician's Apprentice' was about someone from the low end of society manifesting magical power and how that completely messes up the balance of the whole system.

Justice often means taking power from some who have it and giving it to some who do not.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

The revolution... is a dictatorship of the exploited against the exploiters.

In every epoch we should endeavor every time to ensure that the historical record is not overwhelmed by conformism …. Those who rule at any given time are the inheritors of all those who have been victorious. On the other hand, the oppressed class should study the picture of its enslaved ancestors rather than its liberated descendants

The knowing minority had to impose its will on the majority, even by brute force. The great mass, the workers, are in economic slavery. They cannot accomplish their own liberation. Their minds are formed by their masters; they are incapable of understanding their true interests. It is left to the knowing minority to free the mass from the tutelage of its present masters. Only after this is done will the mass understand.