C.L.R. James Quotes

Just because you read it in a magazine,
Or see it on a TV screen
Don't make it factual.

Nobody makes me do anything I don't want to do. It's my decision. So the biggest devil is me. I'm either my best friend or my worst enemy. And that's how I have to deal with it.

Life seems to me essentially passion, conflict, rage... It is only intellect that keeps me sane; perhaps this makes me overvalue intellect against feeling.

Every day, every year, and for every graduating class, there is a choice to be made, the same option for all grown-ups to make: to be one of three types of Americans — those who embrace liberty for all, those who won’t, or those who are indifferent — and only the first do the work of creating a more perfect union.

Time is the wealth of change, but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.

The people who are trying to make this world worse are not taking a day off. How can I? Light up the darkness.

So let me ask you something: how's everybody doing tonight, huh? (audience cheers) Good, well, fuck you! Just trying to make you feel at home.

Cocaine addiction is God's way of saying "You make too damn much money!

Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.

Her voice makes you stop the car and peer skywards in wonder.

My approach to politics is that I never said I'm smart. But why aren't I allowed to write about my experience?

There is plenty of time to sleep in the grave.

The Third World deserves freedom of speech just like everyone else. We want to fight the battle to say what we want, whether to be serious or just make fun of ourselves. That's what "Worldtown" is about, that's what "Paper Planes" is about. It's what people in the third world live through.

I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in a person.

Don’t sit down and wait for opportunities to come. Get up and make them.

That the government's power under the Taft-Hartley Act to stop a strike by injunction so clearly strengthens the hand of the employer—even though it is used only when a strike threatens the national health, welfare, or safety—is a grave blemish and explains much of union resistance to the Act.