Privilege Quotes

The eye of true equality often seems to have some degree of disrespect for the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty to the supposedly accomplished, privileged high and lofty, although in reality, it's simply irrespectiveness.

~ Criss Jami

We have the power of the pen to write the next chapter, and the privilege to author the page in whatever fashion we choose. Yet, seldom do we understand the power of the pen and the privilege of the page.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It’s not about some principled debate as to whether I should focus on what I have, or on what I don’t have. Rather, it’s about being thankful that I have the privilege to enjoy the former, and the opportunity to contemplate the latter.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

Death reminds us that life is a temporary privilege, not an endless right.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

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

~ Richelle E. Goodrich

If love is the greatest gift of all-and I believe it is- then the greatest privilege of all is to be able to love someone.

~ Laura Schroff

...I have a theory about why and how all this has happened to you.Instead of having to earn it, you have been handed the presidency, the same way you've come by everything else in your life. Money and name alone have opened every door for you. Without effort or hard work or intelligence, or ingenuity, you have been bequeathed a life of privilege...So it's no wonder you think you deserved to be named President. You didn't earn it or win it- therefore it must be yours!

~ Michael Moore

Jefferson's fear was that without such a system of public education, the country would end up being ruled by a privileged elite that would recycle itself through a network of private institutions that entrenched their advantages.

~ Fareed Zakaria

Service to others in their time of need is a privilege and an honor.

~ Harley King

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.

~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

The best thing that ever happened to you might be your new job, spouse, awards, etc, but I tell you that being granted to live in order to enjoy these things are wonderful privileges most people can't get.

~ Michael Bassey Johnson

Privilege is when you can afford to sit back and criticize others who have to fight for the things you take for granted.

~ Dashanne Stokes

White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost.

~ Reni Eddo-Lodge

When you grow up knowing that you deserve to be on top, that the lesser houses exist to serve your house’s glorious destiny, you take such things for granted. You’re born assuming that someone else is paying the cost of your life. It’s just the way things are. What happens during annexation—it’s a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

~ Ann Leckie

Political correctness' as 'over-sensitivity' is code for saying the privileged shouldn't have their unearned privileges questioned.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Tolerance of intolerance enables oppression.

~ Dashanne Stokes

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

~ Dashanne Stokes

You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Privilege is not knowing that you're hurting others and not listening when they tell you.

~ Dashanne Stokes

The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege.In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

~ Tim Wise

Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

~ Tim Wise

...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality.The irony of American history is the tendency of good white Americanas to presume racial innocence. Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege.In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

~ Tim Wise

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

~ Ben Elton

If you happen to be white in a white country; pretty according to the dictates of fashion; rich in a country where money is adored, it’s almost impossible to grow up and to grow up honest inside. It is almost impossible. Most people don’t grow up. Most people age. They find parking spaces, honor their credit cards, get married, have children, and call that maturity. What that is, is aging. But to grow up, to take responsibility for the time you take up, and the space you occupy, to honor every living person for his or her humanity, that is to grow up.

~ Maya Angelou

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

~ Andrei Platonov

The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to satisfy the egalitarian rage awakened.

~ Wyndham Lewis

Equality before the law is probably forever unattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges.

~ H.l. Mencken

When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression

~ Unknown

All men were born in the same way: no privilege existed that was not of man's own contriving.

~ Winston Graham

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.

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

The models we have, and the standards we are expected to maintain, come to us via heterosexuality as a normative state. Heterosexuality--whatever the current version of that concept happens to be--is unremarkable because it is the standard by which everything else is measured. That is heterosexual privilege.

~ Hanne Blank

Ignore the voice that scorns and ridicules to ensure it does not mold you. Stifling subtleties like these, if unchecked, are oppressive. Freedom is a love supreme birthright, not a privilege to be governed by any other.

~ T.f. Hodge

The message is clear: a good mother breast feeds. Significantly, this good mother shares a sociocultural profile with women in other developed countries: she is over thirty, is a high earning professional, does not smoke, takes prenatal classes, and benefits from a long maternity leave.

~ Élisabeth Badinter

Maybe that was the trouble. She got the first and biggest share of everything – first whack at the new clothes and the biggest part of any special treat. Hazel never had to grab for anything and she was soft.

~ Carson Mccullers

There is only one class of men, the privileged class

~ Albert Camus

To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science.”This invisibility is political.

~ Michael S. Kimmel

In later years, I confess that I do not envy the white boy as I once did. I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

~ Booker T. Washington

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

~ Roxane Gay

Duty and honor are oft enough realm only for those with security to afford them.

~ Chris Galford

When I got to college, the fake ID thing wasn't that important, since pretty much everyone could get away with drinking in New Orleans. But the drugs, well, that was a different story altogether, because drugs are every bit as illegal in New Orleans as anywhere else--at least, if you're black and poor, and have the misfortune of doing your drugs somewhere other than the dorms at Tulane University. But if you are lucky enough to be living at Tulane, which is a pretty white place, especially contrasted with the city where it's located, which is 65 percent black, then you are absolutely set.

~ Tim Wise