All Quotes by Amiri Baraka
“One of the most persistent traits of of the Western white man has always been his fanatical and almost instinctive assumption that his systems and ideas about the world are the most desirable, and further that people who do not aspire to to them, or at least think them admirable, are savages or enemies. The idea that Western thought might be exotic if viewed from another landscape never presents itself to most Westerners.”
“The Black Artist's role in America is to aid in the destruction of America as he knows it. His role is to report and reflect so precisely the nature of the society, and of himself, in that society, that other men will be moved by the exactness of his rendering, and if they are black men, grow strong through this moving, having seen their own strength, and weakness, and if they are white men, tremble, curse, and go mad, because they will be drenched with the filth of their evil.”
“A rich man told me recently that a liberal is a man who tells other people what to do with their money.”
“Thought is more important than art. To revere art and have no understanding of the process that forces it into existence, is finally not even to understand what art is.”
“A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.”