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Ossie Davis
29 quotes
“Performing artists are less political today than they were years ago because they're not called on to be political”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We have freedom. What we don't have is equality!”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“They knew what to say because it fell into the existing rhetoric”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The struggle and the arts are connected almost by definition”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I had a sense of certainty that no matter how dark it is now, one of these days it'll change.”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Optimism is small and personal”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“One of the traps we've tried to avoid is the presentation of ourselves as victims or beggars”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We're going somewhere, even if it's only around the Goddamn corner”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“when the time comes we'll give each other our own Oscar and attend our own funerals and screw the rest of it if necessary”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Colorblind casting shouldn't violate common sense”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Criticism used to be an art practiced by educated people. Now you don't know what any of them are looking for in anything”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I have less opportunities than I used to, but I don't think there's any prejudice against me because of my age”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A free-wheeling conversation with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee 9 March, 2001
“Art has a deep responsibility, social, cultural, and otherwise. And that the basic motivation for the creation of art is, in a sense, to meet those responsibilities. Now, it doesn't mean that you cannot express yourself in any way you want to, but it takes place in a social context, whether you mean it to do so or not”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I fully expected that a black man particularly would by lynched from time to time because it was going on when I came into the world”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It was a tradition that had gone all the way back into slavery, as long as we knew ourselves, we knew this as a part of the world in which we lived. We related to it on an individual basis, as it happened, we related to the incidents.”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We knew that if we lived within those parameters there was a world, that was really to some degree a safe world, and a world that provided us, reaffirmed us as to whom we were because it was a black world”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But there were limits of the power that the black community had. It could not punish those from the outside who wrought crime against us, it could not demand that justice be done, it could beg, it could pray, you know, it could cajole, it could wheedle, you know, but it could never insist, and we knew that that was a limit”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We were not by any means a helpless community, cowering against, under the boot heel of the oppressor”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Blacks are by and large are still, in a majority sense, Democrats”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“If you can’t outfight the man, outsmart him”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“in the end it is history that will tell the story”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The history of the black man on the frontier – and, indeed, the history of the Indian – has never really been paid attention to in the movies.”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There is a lot of American history waiting to be rediscovered, once you get away from the official version”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ossie Davis: That’s What It’s All About 14 December, 2012
“I would say that a deeper patriotism is required when we consider to whom we owe our patriotic response”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I come together to say, I choose to live for brotherhood and not for folly. I choose peace and not war. I choose life and not death.”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don’t think being a celebrity or being anything else overrides the responsibility to be a decent, humane citizen”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I’d hate to go to hell and say I was busy trying to save the Oscars”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Mankind, humankind is at stake”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Peace, peace, peace. This is where it’s at, and this is where I am.”
Ossie Davis (1917–2005) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ossie Davis Protesting the Iraq War: “I Choose to Live for Brotherhood and Not For Folly” 7 February, 2005