Top 24 Derrick Bell Quotes
#1. All ethical people strive to choose "right" over "easy" when confronted by situations that force them to choose one or the other.
Derrick Bell
#2. Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.
Benjamin Franklin
#4. The challenge throughout has been to tell what I view as the truth about racism without causing disabling despair.
Derrick Bell
#5. Slavery is, as an example of what white America has done, a constant reminder of what white America might do.
Derrick Bell
#6. I was a teenage boy once too, you know," Uncle Mort said, popping back up. "I know what your brain looks like. It's a three-ring circus in there.
Gina Damico
#7. Few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.
Derrick Bell
#8. Courage is a decision you make to act in a way that works through your own fear for the greater good as opposed to pure self-interest. Courage means putting at risk your immediate self-interest for what you believe is right.
Derrick A. Bell
#9. However self-sufficient we may fancy ourselves, we exist only in relation
to our friend, family, and life partners; to those we teach and mentor; to our co-workers, neighbors, strangers; and even to forces we cannot fully conceive of, let alone define. In many ways, we are our relationships.
Derrick A. Bell
#10. Self-esteem is like a difficult-to-cultivate flower. It requires frequent nurturing that occurs when you keep your word and follow through on your promises.
Derrick Bell
#11. We should not have the U.S. government buying stock in American industries - the financial industry or any other industry.
Rand Paul
#12. We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.
Derrick A. Bell
#13. I do not forget that I am a mechanic. I am proud to own it. Neither do I forget that the apostle Paul was a tentmaker; Socrates was a sculptor; and Archimedes was a mechanic.
Andrew Jackson
#14. It appears that my worst fears have been realised: we have made progress in everything yet nothing has changed.
Derrick Bell
#15. I go to readings by fiction writers like Alice Walker, and I'm envious of the level of attention they generate.
Derrick Bell
#16. Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.
Derrick A. Bell
#17. Resistance is a powerful motivator precisely because it enables us to fulfill our longing to achieve our goals while letting us boldly recognize and name the obstacles to those achievements.
Derrick A. Bell
#18. Give up being right. Instead radiate peace, harmony, love, and laughter from your heart.
Deepak Chopra
#19. My wife says I spend my life trying to teach white folks. I'm not so sure I'm proud of it, but she's right.
Derrick Bell
#20. The Function of Leadership is to produce more Leaders, Not more Followers.
Ralph Nader
#21. Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.
Derrick A. Bell
#22. A rule without exceptions is an instrument capable of doing mischief to the innocent and bringing grief
as well as injustice
to those who should gain exemptions from the rule's functioning.
Derrick A. Bell
#23. And why wander in these labyrinths? Once more, for aesthetic reasons; because this present infinity, these "vertiginous symmetries," have their tragic beauty. The form is more important than the content.
Andre Maurois
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