Assata Shakur Quotes

Quotes about:

• Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.

  Assata Shakur

  People, World, Moral

  Assata Shakur (2016). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.151, Zed Books Ltd.

  352 Copy quote

• It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
  It is our duty to win.
  We must love each other and support each other.
  We have nothing to lose but our chains.

  Assata Shakur

  Fighting, Winning, Support

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.67, Zed Books

  318 Copy quote

• We need to be weapons of mass construction, weapons of mass love. It's not enough just to change the system. We need to change ourselves.

  Assata Shakur

  Needs, Weapons, Construction

  338 Copy quote

• No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help set you free.

  Assata Shakur

  Hero, Giving, Needs

  337 Copy quote

• A revolutionary woman can't have no reactionary man. If he's not about liberation, if he's not about struggle, if he ain't about building a strong Black family, if he ain't about building a strong Black nation, then he ain't about nothing.

  Assata Shakur

  Strong, Struggle, Men

  347 Copy quote

• People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

  Assata Shakur

  Thinking, People, Tolerance

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.277, Zed Books

  358 Copy quote

• Only a fool lets somebody else tell him who his enemy is....never let your enemies choose your enemies for you.

  Assata Shakur

  Enemy, Fool

  255 Copy quote

• Only the strong go crazy. The weak just go along.

  Assata Shakur

  Strong, Crazy, Weak

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.209, Zed Books

  208 Copy quote

• Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.

  Assata Shakur

  Resistance, Oppression

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.184, Zed Books

  188 Copy quote

• Hip Hop can be a very powerful weapon to help expand young people's political and social consciousness. But just as with any weapon, if you don't know how to use it, if you don't know where to point it, or what you're using it for, you can end up shooting yourself in the foot or killing your sisters or brothers.

  Assata Shakur

  Brother, Powerful, Feet

  241 Copy quote

• Dreams and reality are opposites. Action synthesizes them.

  Assata Shakur

  Dream, Reality, Opposites

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.275, Zed Books

  113 Copy quote

• I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heartless, robots who protect them and their property.

  Assata Shakur

  War, Lying, Heartless

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.65, Zed Books

  198 Copy quote

• White people's fear of Black people with guns will never cease to amaze me. Probably it's because they think about what they would do were they in our place. Especially the police, who have done so much dirt to Black people - their guilty conscience tells them to be afraid. When Black people seriously organize and take up arms to fight for our liberation, there will be a lot of white people who will drop dead from no other reason than their own guilt and fear.

  Assata Shakur

  Fighting, Gun, Thinking

  180 Copy quote

• Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression.

  Assata Shakur

  Moon, Black, Revolutionary

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.67, Zed Books

  142 Copy quote

• The usual way the people are taught to think in amerika is that each subject is in a little compartment and has no relation to any other subject. For the most part, we receive fragments of unrelated knowledge, and our education follows no logical format or pattern. It is exactly this kind of education that produces people who don’t have the ability to think for themselves and who are easily manipulated.

  Assata Shakur

  Thinking, People, Usual

  133 Copy quote

• I hate war, and I hate having to struggle. I honestly do because I wish I had been born into a world where it was unnecessary. This context of struggle and being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression. Otherwise I would be a sculptor, or a gardener, carpenter - You know, I would be free to be so much more… I guess part of me or a part of who I am, a part of what I do is being a warrior - a reluctant warrior, a reluctant struggler. But I do it, because I’m committed to life.

  Assata Shakur

  Hate, War, Struggle

  154 Copy quote

• People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows.

  Assata Shakur

  Thinking, People, Tolerance

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.277, Zed Books

  21 Copy quote

• Being a warrior and being a struggler has been forced on me by oppression, otherwise I would have been free to be so much more.

  Assata Shakur

  Warrior, Oppression, Has Beens

  15 Copy quote

• No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them.

  Assata Shakur

  Giving, Needs

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.196, Zed Books

  63 Copy quote

• At this time I'd like to say a few words especially to my sisters: SISTERS. BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE.

  Assata Shakur

  Struggle, People, Black

  123 Copy quote

• Peace is a rare gift. Peace of mind, peaceful sleeps, and peaceful spirits are all luxuries that few rebels can ever afford.

  Assata Shakur

  Sleep, Luxury, Peaceful

  67 Copy quote

• Any Black person in amerika [sic], if they are being honest with themselves, have got to come to the conclusion that they don't know what it feels like to be free. We aren't free politically, economically, or socially. We have very little power over what happens in our lives. In fact, a Black person isn't free to walk down the street. Walk down the wrong street, in the wrong neighborhood at night, and you know what happens.

  Assata Shakur

  Night, Black, Littles

  77 Copy quote

• If we are not committed to saving this earth we will be buying designer air filters and gas masks with little Nike swishes on them.

  Assata Shakur

  Nike, Air, Filters

  16 Copy quote

• It is the obligation of every person who claims to oppose oppression to resist the oppressor by every means at his or her disposal. Not to engage in physical resistance, armed resistance to oppression, is to serve the interests of the oppressor; no more, no less. There are no exceptions to the rule, no easy out.

  Assata Shakur

  Mean, Exception To The Rule, Resistance

  23 Copy quote

• The more you understand what you're dealing with, the stronger you get. People see fear as a bad thing. Fear is healthy when you're dealing with Amerika. But when fear controls you, when you're afraid to struggle fear is a bad thing. I'm more afraid of what will happen if I don't struggle, than what will happen if I do

  Assata Shakur

  Struggle, People, Healthy

  11 Copy quote

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