Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Matshona Dhliwayo

Quote by Matshona Dhliwayo

Author

Matshona Dhliwayo

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Matshona Dhliwayo. more

You May Also Like

“A writer can live by his writing. If not so luxuriously as by other trades, then less luxuriously. The nature of the work he does all day will more affect his happiness than the quality of his dinner at night. Whatever be your calling, and however much it brings you in the year, you could still, you know, get more by cheating. We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about a little poverty; but such considerations should not move us in the choice of that which is to be the business and justification of so great a portion of our lives; and like the missionary, the patriot, or the philosopher, we should all choose that poor and brave career in which we can do the most and best for mankind.”

WritingPovertyMankindWriterCareer
Author:Robert Louis Stevenson
Create image

“The next day, when I came home from the library, there was a small, used red record player in my room. I found my mother in the kitchen and spotted a bandage taped to her arm. “Ma,” I asked. “Where did you get the money for the record player?” “I had it saved,” she lied. My father lived well, had a large house and an expensive imported car, wanted for little, and gave nothing. My mother lived on welfare in a slum and sold her blood to the Red Cross to get me a record player. “Education is everything, Johnny,” she said, as she headed for the refrigerator to get me food. “You get smart like regular people and you don’t have to live like this no more.” She and I were not hugging types, but I put my hand on her shoulder as she washed the dishes with her back to me and she said, in best Brooklynese, “So go and enjoy, already.” My father always said I was my mother’s son and I was proud of that. On her good days, she was a good and noble thing to be a part of. That evening, I plugged in the red record player and placed it by the window. My mother and I took the kitchen chairs out to the porch and listened to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony from beginning to end, as we watched the oil-stained waters of the Mad River roll by. It was a good night, another good night, one of many that have blessed my life.”

PovertyMothers Love
Author:John William Tuohy
Create image

“Notwithstanding the memories of slavery, and in the face poverty, ignorance, terrorism, and subjugation still deeply woven into their lives, the embittered past of blacks was taken onto a much higher plane of intellectual and artistic consideration during the Renaissance.”

PovertySlaveryTerrorismOppressionAfrican American AuthorsCreative GeniusIntellectualsAfrican LiteratureHarlem RenaissanceAfrican American MusicHarlem Renaissance HistoriansAfrican American ArtistsDemograghic ShiftsMoral Victories
Book:Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance
Create image

“At least ten times as many people died from preventable, poverty-related diseases on September 11, 2011, as died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on that black day. The terrorist attacks led to trillions of dollars being spent on the ‘war on terrorism’ and on security measures that have inconvenienced every air traveller since then. The deaths caused by poverty were ignored. So whereas very few people have died from terrorism since September 11, 2001, approximately 30,000 people died from poverty-related causes on September 12, 2001, and on every day between then and now, and will die tomorrow. Even when we consider larger events like the Asian tsunami of 2004, which killed approximately 230,000 people, or the 2010 earthquake in Haiti that killed up to 200,000, we are still talking about numbers that represent just one week’s toll for preventable, poverty-related deaths — and that happens fifty-two weeks in every year.”

PovertyWar On TerrorExtreme PovertyCause Prioritization
Book:Practical Ethics
Create image

“I see a role for specialized knowledge, but I think that it's important for there to be an arena where it is shared, where it is communicated. It's not that somebody shouldn't have specialized knowledge. The ability to dig a trench and lay a cable is a kind of specialized knowledge. Farmers have specialized knowledge, too. The question is: what sort of knowledge is privileged in our societies? I don't think that a CEO is more valuable to society and ought to be paid ten million dollars a year, while farmers and laborers starve. The range of what is valued has become so extreme that one lot of people have captured it and left three-quarters of the world to live in unthinkable poverty, because their work is not valued. What would happen if the sweepers of the city went on strike or the sewage system didn't work? A CEO wouldn't be able to deal with his own shit.”

PovertyKnowledgeSpecializationCeos
Book:The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile: Conversations With Arundhati Roy
Create image

“The worst feeling was poor. Because in Haiti, so many people are poor, it's nothing to be ashamed of. And there's always a way to degaje, to get by, even when you have nothing. But misery in the United States is harder than misery in Haiti. You feel like it's your fault for being poor. And if you don't have any money, you can't eat. You won't have a house. If you fall, there's nowhere to go and no one to catch you. Everyone back in Haiti assumes that once you've arrived lòt bò, that it's a good life, that you're living well. And it feels so shameful to tell anyone that it's not true.”

PovertyUnited StatesHaiti
Book:Hold Tight, Don't Let Go
Create image