Abraham Lincoln Quotes

May my eyes never see and my feet never take me to a society where half the people are held in silence.

But as well may you, when urging a man up-hill with a heavy load upon his back, and with your lash also upon his back, tell him, that be has nothing to do either with the load or the lash.

Women have a predestination to suffering.

Our masters have not heard the people's voice for generations and it is much, much louder than they care to remember.

No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims.

Man preys on man; and you mourn for the idle tapestry that decorated a gothic pillar, and the dronish bell that summoned the fat priest to prayer. You mourn for the empty pageant of a name, when slavery flaps her wing, ... Why is our fancy to be appalled by terrific perspectives of a hell beyond the grave? - Hell stalks abroad; - the lash resounds on the slave's naked sides; and the sick wretch, who can no longer earn the sour bread of unremitting labour, steals to a ditch to bid the world a long good night.

Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed

In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.

For some reason, I seem to be bothered whenever I see acts of injustice and assaults on people's civil liberties. I imagine what I write in the future will follow in that vein. Whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

In a war situation or where violence and injustice are prevalent, poetry is called upon to be something more than a thing of beauty.

There is also a natural and very, very strong empathy with the underdog, with people who have suffered, people who have been pushed around by foreigners in particular, but also by their own people.

Leaving American disaster victims to languish is morally reprehensible and un-American.

The poor North has much to do with slavery. It staggers under its load and smarts under its lash.

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

The abuse dies in a day, but the denial slays the life of the people, and entombs the hope of the race.

The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.

Racism oppresses its victims, but also binds the oppressors, who sear their consciences with more and more lies until they become prisoners of those lies. They cannot face the truth of human equality because it reveals the horror of the injustices they commit.

Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.

Never mind a world that can't see past brutality.

I had a very comfortable life, but there were people who spent their life in prison, whose families were destroyed.

Racism and injustice and violence sweep our world, bringing a tragic harvest of heartache and death.

A man can submit today in order to resist tomorrow. My submission had been such. And because I had not been free to show my real feeling, to voice my true thoughts, my submission had bred bitterness and anger. And there were nearly ten million others who had submitted with equal anger and bitterness.

Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.

I think people should be angry at things that are worthy of anger. Injustice is outrageous and deserves outrage.