20 Powerful Quotes From the Legendary Dick Gregory

1. I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.
2. I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark.
3. Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned.
4. I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp – just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man.
5. Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.
6. In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it’s a sport.
7. Just being a Negro doesn’t qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.
8. When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It’s not enough, but it helps.
9. And we love to dance, especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede.
10. I wouldn’t mind paying taxes – if I knew they were going to a friendly country.
    
11. Revolution ain’t nothing but an extent of evolution; Evolution is a fact of nature. So when old folks tell me that they don’t understand hip hop and the music is too loud, well I guess it means you’re not supposed to be in there.
12. Because I’m a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn’t be a part of it.
13. America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don’t misuse a household pet.
14. I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn’t have what I wanted.
15. 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.’
16. When you’ve got something really good, you don’t have to force it on people. They will steal it!
17. 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.
18. I personally would say that the quickest way to wipe out a group of people is to put them on a soul food diet. One of the tragedies is that the very folks in the black community who are most sophisticated in terms of the political realities in this country are nonetheless advocates of “soul food.” They will lay down a heavy rap on genocide in America with regard to black folks, then walk into a soul food restaurant and help the genocide along.
19. The only good thing about the good old days is they’re gone.
20. If democracy is such a good thing, let’s have more of it.

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