To understand the power of the priesthood, we must know its limitations.
Russell M. NelsonRead
The Americans say that we are ungrateful-but I ask them for heaven's sake, what should we be grateful to them for-for murdering our fathers and mothers?-Or do they wish us to return thanks to them for chaining and handcuffing us, branding us, cramming fire down our throats, or for keeping us in slavery, and beating us nearly or quite to death to make us work in ignorance and miseries, to support them and their families. They certainly think we are a gang of fools.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote expresses deep resentment and challenges the notion of gratitude in the context of historical oppression.
David Walker's quote powerfully confronts the hypocrisy of those who expect gratitude from a group that has suffered immense injustices. He questions the validity of thankfulness in light of the atrocities committed against his ancestors and highlights the absurdity of expecting appreciation for oppression, thus advocating for recognition of the historical pain and injustice endured.
Themes
GratitudeOppressionInjusticeSlaveryHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech on social justice, one could reference this quote to highlight the importance of acknowledging historical grievances.
Similar quotes
A priest friend of mine has cautioned me away from the standard God of our childhoods, who loves you and guides you and then, if you are bad, roasts you: God as a high school principal in a gray suit who never remembered your name but is always leafing unhappily through your files.
Anne LamottRead
He had the air of a spy in a melodrama, missing nothing, liking nothing, looking forward to the great day when everything would be turned upside down.
Kurt VonnegutRead
The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony.
Mary Baker EddyRead
Perhaps passing through the gates of death is like passing quietly through the gate in a pasture fence. On the other side, you keep walking, without the need to look back. No shock, no drama, just the lifting of a plank or two in a simple wooden gate in a clearing. Neither pain, nor floods of light, nor great voices, but just the silent crossing of a meadow.
Mark HelprinRead
To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.
Mary MccarthyRead