Richard Claxton "Dick" Gregory (October 12, 1932 - August 19, 2017) was an American comedian, social activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur. Gregory was an influential American comic who used his performance skills to convey to both white and black audiences his political message on civil rights. His social satire helped change the way European-Americans perceived African-American comedians since he first performed in public. (Click here for full Wikipedia article) This post was originally written while Gregory was alive and was modified to reflect his death.
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America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet.
Baseball is very big with my people. It figures. It's the only time we can get to shake a bat at a white man without starting a riot.
Being white is a job in America. You take that away, you better get the soldiers out.
Everything we do we should look at in terms of millions of people who can't afford it.
For a black man, there's no difference between the North and the South. In the South, they don't mind how close I get, as long as I don't get too big. In the North, they don't mind how big I get, as long as I don't get too close.
Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.
I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.
I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.
I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn't have what I wanted.
I went to Ethiopia, and it dawned on me that you can tell a starving, malnourished person because they've got a bloated belly and a bald head. And I realized that if you come through any American airport and see businessmen running through with bloated bellies and bald heads, that's malnutrition, too.
I wouldn't mind paying taxes if I knew they were going to a friendly country.
If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the tanks to control you.
In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country.
In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport.
Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.
Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.'
Love is man's natural endowment, but he doesn't know how to use it. He refuses to recognize the power of love because of his love of power.
Nature is not affected by finance. If someone offered you ten thousand dollars to let them touch your eyeball without blinking, you would never collect the money. At the very last moment, Nature would force you to blink your eye. Nature will protect her own.
One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.
Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broke is just a temporary condition.
Race baiters and discriminators may go underground, but they never move out of town.
Riches do not delight us so much with their possession, as torment us with their loss.
Some kind of way, we have to say enough is enough.
The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone.
The universe is not rich enough to buy the vote of an honest man.
This isn't a revolution of black against white; this is a revolution of right against wrong.
Usually an elected official who has compromised to get nominated, compromised to get elected, and compromised repeatedly to stay in office.
When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship.
When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It's not enough, but it helps.
You know, I always say white is not a color, white is an attitude, and if you haven't got trillions of dollars in the bank that you don't need, you can't be white.
Categories: Dick Gregory, Quotes of the day
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