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.
Harry BelafonteRead
You can cage the singer but not the song.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The essence of creativity cannot be contained, even if the creator is restricted.
This quote highlights the idea that while an individual's freedom or physical presence may be limited, their artistic expression, ideas, and emotions can still transcend those boundaries. The 'singer' represents the individual, whereas the 'song' symbolizes their creativity and message, which remain powerful and influential regardless of external circumstances.
Themes
CreativityFreedomExpressionArtMusic
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about overcoming challenges, one might use this quote to emphasize the resilience of artistic expression.
More from Harry Belafonte
All quotes →Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
Harry BelafonteRead
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.
Harry BelafonteRead
Art in its highest form is art that serves and instructs society and human development.
Harry BelafonteRead
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.
Harry BelafonteRead
Children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS are not only just as deserving of an education as any other children, but they may need that education even more. Being part of a school environment will prepare them for the future, while helping to remove the stigma and discrimination unfortunately associated with AIDS.
Harry BelafonteRead
Similar quotes
The book, like the bicycle, is a perfect form.
Jacques BarzunRead
The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.
Ezra PoundRead
When you have committed enough words to paper, you feel you have a spine stiff enough to stand up in the wind. But when you stop writing, you find that's all you are - a spine, a row of rattling vertebrae, dried out like an old quill pen.
Hilary MantelRead
The fact that we're at a point today where anybody, anywhere can put a comic book together and get it in front of the entire planet without spending a dime on printing and distribution - that's the good thing, and I think that's what's going to save [the comics industry]. These young people who have nothing to do with the industry we're in, just going out there and doing their own work and putting it out there, letting people respond to it.
Darwyn CookeRead
I really knew when I started photographing I wanted it to be a way of knowing different cultures, not just in other countries but in this country, too, and I knew I wanted to be a voyeur.
Mary Ellen MarkRead
...to be a poet, requires a mythology of the self. The self described is the poet self, to which the daily self (and others) are often ruthlessly sacrificed. The poet self is the real self, the other one is the carrier; and when the poet self dies, the person dies.
Susan SontagRead