Dick Gregory Quotes

The most difficult thing to get people to do is to accept the obvious.

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.

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.

If all you can do is judge a person by their appearance, because you don't have the spirit to judge someone from within, you're in trouble.

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.

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.

I don't know why America always thinks she has to run all around the world forcing people to take our way of governance at the barrel of a gun. When you've got something really good, you don't have to force it on people. They will steal it!

Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge.

Fear and God do not occupy the same space.

When I tune into my beautiful self, I get happiness. Everything in the universe belongs to me.

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.

I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.

Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broke is just a temporary condition.

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.

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth.

The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone.

The United States is the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet.

Luck is opportunity meeting up with preparation. So you must prepare yourself to be lucky.

The free man is the man with no fears.

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre.

If you take 12 waters from the coconut - not the ones you buy in the store, although that's good - but the fresh coconuts, the little brown ones with the three eyes, if you take 12 of those within 24 hours, your blood will go back to the way it was when you were born.

Laughter is the best way to release tensions and fears.

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten.

I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn't have what I wanted.

America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet.