Famous Quotes

"Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other."

Anna Deavere Smith on Politics

More quotes about Politics

• "Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future."

  John F. Kennedy on Politics

• "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress but I repeat myself."

  Mark Twain on Politics

• "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

  Plato on Politics

• "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

  Milton Friedman on Politics

• "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

  Joseph Stalin on Politics

More quotes by Anna Deavere Smith

• "Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?"

• "People who are sick, or who have been sick, or have come close to death have a lot to say - and they want you to hear it."

• "Learning is a tunnel experience that makes us think more broadly."

• "Somehow we can't live outside the politics of race. There's something very deep in all of us, that is taught to us when we are very, very little. Which is the disrespect and fear of the other."

• "I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment."