Privilege Quotes

Privilege is presuming to speak for others you know nothing about.

So the swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets...

To know God`s laws and abide by them is a privilege.

With privilege comes responsibility, you must understand that. People expect us to lead by example and we shall not disappoint them.

One of the privileges of being an athlete is that on days when I have practice and games, I’m present whether I’m present or not. It’s not fair, but that’s the system. What can I do about it?

Maybe looking away is about privilege. I need to think harder and longer about my choices and recognize that choosing whom I see and whom I don't see is one of the most hurtful functions of privilege.

In my desperation, I have finally discovered that the only way that I can begin to fill the gaping hole within me is to be thankful for what’s there, and not angry for what’s not.

Everyone has a responsibility towards this larger family of man, but especially if you're privileged, that increases your responsibi

The premise is: everybody's like me and we all think alike.The corollary is: people who don't think like me don't matter.

History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning.

Is there no end to his diguises of benevolence?

Leadership crisis erupt when people who have not learnt how to obey instructions are given the privilege to give commands. Leaders are experienced servants.

Women everywhere are always expected to continually imagine what one situation or another would look like from a male point of view. Men are almost never expected to do the same for women. So deeply internalized is this pattern of behavior that many men react to any suggestion that they might do otherwise as if it were itself an act of violence.

How is it that we can punish women who are paid by politicians yet allow freedom and forgiveness to the politicians who pay them? The irony of the situation is that if we allow Sptizer’s deep pockets to buy his way back into our homes and hearts, then it’s not young women he hired who are whores, it’s the people of New York.

SOME PEOPLE ARE BORN LUCKY...OTHERS ARE LUCKY TO BE BORN...I SAY THE WORLD WAS LUCKY I WAS BORN

People with advantages are loathe to believe that they just happen to be people with advantages. They come readily to define themselves as inherently worthy of what they possess; they come to believe themselves 'naturally' elite; and, in fact, to imagine their possessions and their privileges as natural extensions of their own elite selves.

Privilege is when you can afford to sit back and watch as others' rights are trampled upon.

If you have to stretch that far to reach the justification you want, then perhaps you’re standing upon the wrong pedestal.

Privileged groups, like everyone else, want to think well of themselves and to believe that they are acting generously and justly.

O masses, o masses! When will you assume the image and likeness of your avant-garde?

It's mind-boggling how many different worlds people live in on this one planet.

Unless institutional power reinforces the hurt and prejudice suffered by a group, it is not oppression. By definition, a person of color cannot be racist, or a woman sexist, because they do not have the institutionalized power to act on their prejudices. Also, by definition, all white people are racist, not just because of the personal attitudes that we usually think of as racist, but because of the privilege white skin brings in our society. Whites cannot say they are not racist because they are born into a society that teaches racism and reinforces white privilege every day even before they can be aware of it. Whites can choose, however, to be active antiracists, which means making a commitment to a lifelong process of learning to recognize racism in themselves and in the institutions they are part of and taking steps to stop it.

The notion that I should be fine with the status quo even if I am not wholly affected by the status quo is repulsive.

I have the impression that our children are much more excited about going to school than children in other countries are. They think of it as a special privilege. Going to school, being with other children, getting books and pencils - all of that is like a dream for them.

The middle class and upper middle class are highly attached to the institution of school explicitly as a sorting mechanism, as a way of justifying privileges of which middle-class members are already central beneficiaries. These critics suggest that the entire notion of schools as meritocracies actually reifies and reinforces class privilege--making those whom school rewards (those who already have a lot of benefits) feel they deserve the privileges they have.

Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.

As utterly irrational as it might seem, the greed within me has the most limited vision I can possibly imagine as it has eyes only for the few things it doesn’t have, and it is completely blind to all the many remarkable things that it does.

Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pages of our minds.

I could go into their reality any time I chose to, but they could never come into mine. This is what I called 'helping' them.