The American people have this lesson to learn: That where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) American abolitionist, orator, writer
Speech (1886-04-16), “Strong to Suffer, and Yet Strong to Strive,” Israel Bethel Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, Washington, D.C.
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Quotations about:
social unrest
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered. We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.
Robert Francis Kennedy (1925-1968) American politician
“On the Mindless Menace of Violence,” speech, City Club of Cleveland (5 Apr 1968)
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Our worst revolutionaries today are those reactionaries who do not see and will not admit that there is any need for change.
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901–1909)
Autobiography, ch. 13 “Social and Industrial Justice” (1913)
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Roosevelt goes on to suggest they are revolutionaries because their (in)actions foment revolution.
The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Speech (1932-05-22), Commencement, Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia
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