Joke

It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater. The clown came out to inform the public. They thought it was a jest and applauded. He repeated his warning. They shouted even louder. So I think the world will come to an end amid the general applause from all the wits who believe that it is a joke.
—Søren Kierkegaard

Burning

We continue to believe in the future, even while we know what we know. Our world is burning.
—Casey Schwartz

Patience

Patience is the most heroic of virtues precisely because it bears no semblance of heroism.
—Giacomo Leopardi [08.30.01]

Coming

It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat.
From the wells of disappointment
where the women kneel to pray
for the grace of God in the desert here
and the desert far away:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.
—Leonard Cohen [11.11.16]

Chain

We have sought to bind the chains of slavery on the limbs of the black man, without thinking that at last we should find the other end of that hateful chain about our own necks.
—Frederick Douglass

Advance

The real purpose of socialism is precisely to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development.
—Albert Einstein (May 1949)

Grief

Sometimes, I can't help but feel that our grief is all this country will let us own. And though I'd very much like to pass onto you something other than this ghostly pain, America, it's all you deserve.
—Saeed Jones

Kick

We get such a kick out of looking forward to pleasures and rushing ahead to meet them that we can't slow down enough to enjoy them when they come.
—Alan Watts

Useful

Le beau est aussi utile que l'utile.
(That which is beautiful is as useful as that which is useful.)
—Victor Hugo

Dominance

To refuse to listen to someone's cries for justice and equality until the request comes in a language you feel comfortable with is a way of asserting your dominance over them in the situation.
—Ijeoma Oluo

Before

We can
Each of us
Do the impossible
As long as we can convince ourselves
That it has been done before.
—Octavia E. Butler [08.26.08]

Fiction

Things aren't necessarily going to be okay in a reasonable timeframe just because we want them to. To think otherwise is to succumb to the fiction, a sheltered, resource-rich mindset.
—Charles Yu

Odds

The odds against any of us being here at this moment are staggering.
—Roger Ebert [10.19.10]

Real

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
—Simone Weil [03.19.09]

Dew

The world of dew
is a world of dew,
and yet, and yet.
—Kobayashi Issa

Progress

If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out that's not progress. Progress is healing the wound that the blow made. And they haven't even pulled the knife out much less heal the wound. They won't even admit the knife is there.
—Malcom X (March 1964)

Public opinion

The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion. The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.
—George Orwell (Freedom of the Park)

Tired

I am so tired of waiting,
Aren't you,
For the world to become good
And beautiful and kind?
Let us take a knife
And cut the world in two
And see what worms are eating
At the rind.
—Langston Hughes [12.07.16]

Shock

Urban riots are a special form of violence. They are not insurrections. The rioters are not seeking to seize territory or to attain control of institutions. They are mainly intended to shock the white community. They are a distorted form of social protest.
—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (September 1967)

Burden

In fact the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.
—W.E.B. Du Bois (The Souls of Black Folk; 1903)

Rebellion

This is not a riot. It is a rebellion. A riot is what white folks do in Boston after the Celtics win the championship. A rebellion is when oppressed people resist state sanctioned violence.
—Matt Gonzales