Harry Belafonte Quotes

Each and every one of you has the power, the will and the capacity to make a difference in the world in which you live in

Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.

In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children.

I am who I am despite what America has put before me. I am who I am despite the obstacles that we have all faced based upon race and based upon social and spiritual humiliation.

You can cage the singer but not the song.

Art in its highest form is art that serves and instructs society and human development.

Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.

These children and their parents know that getting an education is not only their right, but a passport to a better future - for the children and for the country.

We've come to this dark time in which the new Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended.

Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?

Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet. I'm always in Africa... And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere.

As a matter of fact, compromise is what oppression feeds on.

Fascism is fascism. Terrorism is terrorism. Oppression is oppression.

Terrorism is in many, many ways the final utterance of voices unheard.

We Have Got To Bring Corporate America To Its Knees

America can no longer afford to be as arrogant as we've been. We can no longer exempt ourselves from the global family of concern.

Bin Laden didn't come from the abstract. He came from somewhere, and if you look where ... you'll see America's hand of villainy.

I am a man who perceives life in a certain way, a man who rejects things that defecate on humankind, who rejects anything that will not give people room for dissent.

Although we had a lot of villainy here in America, Adolf Hitler was certainly the most visible illustration of what would happen if fascism went unchallenged.

Why are we mute? Where are our leaders, our legislators? Where is the church?

I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.

This generosity that has been offered to the United States says very much about the Venezuelan spirit.

When I was 40 and looking at 60, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But 62 feels like a week and a half away from 80. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off.

Anti-democracy...is a virus that exists, and pro-democracy is the antibody to that virus, and I think we have to become vigilant, and we have to stay on top of the issues of democracy and freedom.

Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture.

Without compromise repression would be defeated. Just as some cancers feed on hormones, compromise becomes the hormone of oppression.

The human spirit is resilient and truth - no matter how long you abuse it and how long you try to crush it - will, as Dr. King would say, rise up again, and in the final analysis will prevail.

I not only think that they (U.S. leaders) are misguided, but I think they know exactly what they are doing and I think that they are men who are possessed of evil.

I think there's a lot that the larger society could have been taught or can be taught, but I'm not sure - given how unyielding the larger society has been - that much has been learned.

Pop culture has none of the vibrancy that you find in the folk culture, where people speak directly to their own experience in the human condition.

John say's it's James who started first, James tells the story in reverse. I drag my belt from off me waist, you should have heard dem screaming round de place.

I think that they [Bush Administration] are men who are possessed of evil.

The only thing left for Barack Obama to do is to work like a third world dictator and just put all these guys in jail.

More than once my mother would point out: "Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet."

I don't think that (U.S. President) George Bush...is a man of honor.

I like Colin Powell, I like his West Indian background, I like his intellect, I like a lot of things that he does and his style. What is at fault here is a policy that's taking this country to hell.

You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel.

Do not submit. It is extremely critical that repression be met full head-on and that it be resisted with every fiber in our being. There is just absolutely no compromise that can be made with it.