Somebody Said It Better

"While certainly not new in the American debate, the Civil Rights Movement which took off during the 1950s drew a fiery public line between social progressives who wished to rid the American justice and political system of discriminatory laws and conservative traditionalists who refused to lessen their political power based on the widespread southern conviction of white superiority. Social progressives were at a distinct disadvantage. Not only did they lack political power in the southern states, but their means for achieving their goals were diverse and often in conflict with one another – demonstrated most effectively by highlighting the differences between Martin Luther King, Jr.’s nonviolent protests over discriminatory laws and Stokely Carmichael’s often inflammatory cries for “Black Power” and self-determination. Conservative news media, in an effort to put a decisive wedge in the blossoming movement’s followers, spread stories which, at least according to Carmichael, exaggerated the philosophical division within the movement."

"I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal."

"I know that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little, if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold; and no obstacle whatsoever intervenes at this moment except ignorance to prevent such a state of society from becoming universal."

"What use one makes of a historical explanation is a question separate from the explanation itself. Understanding is more often used to try to alter an outcome than to repeat or perpetuate it. That’s why psychologists try to understand the minds of murderers and rapists, why social historians try to understand genocide, and why physicians try to understand the causes of human disease. Those investigators do not seek to justify murder, rape, genocide, and illness. Instead, they seek to use their understanding of a chain of causes to interrupt the chain."

"Though he had never smelled the death of men before, he knew the smell as if it were a knowledge born into him."

"And herein lies the tragedy of the age: not that men are poor - all men know something of poverty; not that men are wicked - who is good? Not that men are ignorant - what is Truth? Nay, but that men know so little of men."