Assata Shakur Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  344 Copy quote

• 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.

  358 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

  343 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

  321 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

  364 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

  356 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

  260 Copy quote

• Where there is oppression, there will be resistance.

  Assata Shakur

  Resistance, Oppression

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

  194 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

  213 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

  119 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

  248 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

  202 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

  185 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

  148 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

  158 Copy quote

• The first part of planning is to believe that you can put that plan into practise.

  Assata Shakur

  Believe, Firsts, Planning

  30 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

  68 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

  136 Copy quote

• We usually reach success by putting the simple truths that we know into practice.

  Assata Shakur

  Simple, Practice, Simple Truths

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.215, Zed Books

  65 Copy quote

• Hip Hop can be a very effective way to reach young people and teach them about current political and social issues.

  Assata Shakur

  Issues, People, Hip Hop

  15 Copy quote

• I don't have to live up to that Superwoman myth. I can cry and be human and lean on people who take care of me. That can be very liberating.

  Assata Shakur

  People, Care, Cry

  98 Copy quote

• i Believe In The Fire Of Love And The Sweat Of Truth

  Assata Shakur

  Believe, Fire, Sweat

  29 Copy quote

• I believe in living, I believe in birth, I believe in the sweat of love and in the fire of truth and I believe that a lost ship, steered by tired, sea sick sailors, can still be guided home to port

  Assata Shakur

  Believe, Home, Tired

  Assata Shakur (1987). “Assata: An Autobiography”, p.17, Zed Books

  26 Copy quote

• I think that spirituality is important for all people to develop. I don't mean there necessarily has to be a religious aspect to spirituality. Some people are spiritual in a religious way, other people are spiritual in their work and in their art and in their treatment of other people.

  Assata Shakur

  Spiritual, Religious, Art

  28 Copy quote

• To become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.

  Assata Shakur

  Slave

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

  100 Copy quote

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