June Jordan Quotes

The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

Peace secured by slavish submission is not peace.

There is a secret pride in every human heart that revolts at tyranny. You may order and drive an individual, but you cannot make him respect you.

When liberty is taken away by force it can be restored by force. When it is relinquished voluntarily by default it can never be recovered.

I sing against emotional dictatorships, and against the imposition of one person over another, in the name of love.

The use of force to liberate people is very different from the use of force to suppress or control them, or even to defeat them.

It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong.

We do well in a country where people determine their own future. We suffer then there are dictators.

To freemen, threats are impotent.

This is the first step on the odious ground of conscription—a plan sir, which never will and never ought to be submitted to by this country while it retains one idea of civil freedom.

... a step in the direction of tyranny.

When the white man governs himself, that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, ... that is tyranny.

With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor ... Each of the things is, by the respective party, called by two different and incompatible names—liberty and tyranny.

The path of freedom is blocked much more by those who wish to obey than by those who wish to command.

There is nothing to take a man's freedom away from him, save other men.

To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. ...

One need only watch totalitarians at work to see that once men gain power over other men’s minds, that power is never used sparingly and wisely, but lavishly and brutally and with unspeakable results.

We are free today because we are the stronger; we will be slaves again when the government becomes the stronger.

Force works on servile natures, not the free.

He wants to enslave you.' 'I shudder at the thought of being free.

It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

We will have to choose not between color nor race nor religion nor between East and West either, but simply between being slaves and being free. And we will have to choose completely and for good; the time is already past now when we can choose a little of each, a little of both. We can choose a state of slavedom, and if we are powerful enough to be among the top two or three or ten, we can have a certain amount of license - until someone more powerful rises and has us machine-gunned against a cellar wall.

We may indeed in counsel point to the higher road, but we cannot compel any free creature to walk upon it. That leadeth to tyranny, which disfigureth good and maketh it seem hateful.

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny.