African Proverb Quotes

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed.

Steal a loaf of bread and they hang you, steal a land and they'll make you king.

If work was a good thing, the rich would have it all and not let you do it.

The man who has his millions will want everything he can lay his hands on and then raise his voice against the poor devil who wants ten cents more a day.

We have only dented the fortress and the wage slaves are still locked in their cells.

With the coming of peace, the workers are no longer needed as soldiers; they are no longer comrades, defenders of the fatherland, heroes. Once more they become beasts of burden, objects of exploitation.

The ruling class is smarter than you, and they're more creative. And if you forget that lesson, you go down the drain. Because if they weren't, they wouldn't be around as long as they have been and as strong as they have been.

Every man is dishonest who lives upon the labor of others, no matter if he occupies a throne.

In poor countries, the rich and powerful crush the poor and powerless.

The worker is the slave of capitalist society, the female worker is the slave of that slave.

The origin of all revolutions and corruption, and the spur and source of all base morals are just two sayings: The First Saying: 'So long as I'm full, what is it to me if others die of hunger?' The Second Saying: 'You suffer hardship so that I can live in ease; you work so that I can eat.'

It has so happened in all ages of the world that some have labored, and others have, without labor, enjoyed a large proportion of the fruits.

Property is organized robbery.

Social inequality … divides society into two classes -- the wage-slaves and the grabbers of capital

It is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior.

The defeats and victories for the people at the top aren't defeats and victories for the people at the bottom.

All down history, nine-tenths of mankind have been grinding corn for the remaining one-tenth, been paid with the husks, and bidden to thank God they had the husks.

The strongest bulwark of the capitalistic system is the ignorance of its victims.

There is something wrong in a government where they who do the most have the least. There is something wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe; when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the infamous sit at banquets.

Capitalists … can grow rich only where there is an oppressed body of labourers

There are no limits to which powers of privilege will not go to keep the workers in slavery.

Workers cannot buy with their salaries what they have produced and at the same time copiously nourish the swarm of idlers who live upon their work.

The world has grown rich and refined, but chiefly by the efforts of those who themselves continue poor and ignorant.

… in the old days there were one thousand castes and destinies in India. These days, there are just two castes: Men with Big Bellies and Men with Small Bellies. And only two destinies: eat – or get eaten up

The “natural laws of economics” are in fact tools in the hands of the avaricious and the greedy for keeping down and oppressing the laboring classes.