106+ Dick Gregory Quotes (Funny, Political And Outspoken)

Dick Gregory was an American stand-up comedian, civil rights activist, social critic, writer, and entrepreneur. He was known for his satirical comedy, which used humor to challenge racism and political systems. He was a pioneer in stand-up comedy, paving the way for many African-American comedians who followed him.

Top 10 Dick Gregory Quotes

1. Love is man's natural endowment, but he doesn't know how to use it. He refuses to recognize the power of love because of his love of power.
2. I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that.
3. One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.
4. In America, with all of its evils and faults, you can still reach through the forest and see the sun. But we don't know yet whether that sun is rising or setting for our country.
5. Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge.
6. Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broke is just a temporary condition.
7. The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone.
8. America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet.
9. Just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine.
10. The only person on the planet saying derogatory things about his woman is the black man.

Dick Gregory Image Quotes

The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone. — Dick Gregory

The free man is the man with no fears. — Dick Gregory

Dick Gregory Short Quotes

• Love is very dangerous if you just have love and don't have the ability to be lovable.
• The free man is the man with no fears.
• Life isn't a race. It's a relay.
• Why are black folks singing Amazing Grace which is a song about a white slaver's conversion?
• There's a God force inside of you that gives you a will to live.
• I wouldn't mind paying taxes... if I knew they were going to a friendly country
• Some kind of way, we have to say enough is enough.
• When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It's not enough, but it helps.
• No being should be killed. No being should be unloved.
• When you look at Hitler and those thugs, you can put Walmart right next to them.

Dick Gregory Famous Quotes And Sayings

Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken. — Dick Gregory

The only good thing about the good old days is they're gone. — Dick Gregory

In the United States, the Constitution is a health chart left by the Founding Fathers which shows whether or not the body politic is in good health. If the national body is found to be in poor health, the Founding Fathers also left a prescription for the restoration of health called the Declaration of Independence. — Dick Gregory

Because I'm a civil rights activist, I am also an animal rights activist. Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and vicious taking of life. We shouldn't be a part of it. — Dick Gregory

We used to root for the Indians against the cavalry, because we didn't think it was fair in the history books that when the cavalry won it was a great victory, and when the Indians won it was a massacre. — Dick Gregory

No kid in the world, no woman in the world should ever raise a hand against a no-good daddy. That's already been taken care of: A Man Who Destroys His Own Home Shall Inherit the Wind. — Dick Gregory

I go to Chinese Christian community. Jesus looks Chinese. I go to Japanese Christian community. Jesus looks Japanese. I go to Brazilian Christian community. Jesus looks Brazilian. How come in America Jesus looks white? — Dick Gregory

If I had to write down the most important people in the history of this planet, No.1 would be (abolitionist) John Brown. Why? Because he's a white man who said he would die for the cause, because they could take him, but they weren't going to take his grandchildren. That brother was beautiful. — Dick Gregory

...Humans were the only creatures in the world that ate their food cooked. You'd never find a Gorilla frying up some bananas for dinner or a lion charcoal-broiling a zebra steak. Cats don't often run to the oven with a mouse or bird they've captured, and a dog wouldn't naturally prepare its rabbit dinner in a stew. — Dick Gregory

What price would God demand from the churches for having the audacity to lighten the color of his son's skin, and straighten out his nappy hair? — Dick Gregory

[A politician is] a person skilled in the art of compromise. Usually an elected official who has compromised to get nominated, compromised to get elected, and compromised repeatedly to stay in office. — Dick Gregory

I never believed in Santa Claus because I knew no white dude would come into my neighborhood after dark. — Dick Gregory

In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport. — Dick Gregory

Political promises are much like marriage vows. They are made at the beginning of the relationship between candidate and voter, but are quickly forgotten. — Dick Gregory

White folks are the luckiest people: Finally a black president and he's a behaved one. Went to the best schools, best colleges, never raises his voice. I ran for president in 1968. I tell (audiences) if I won, I would have dug up the Rose Garden and planted watermelon! — Dick Gregory

Nature is not affected by finance. If someone offered you ten thousand dollars to let them touch your eyeball without blinking, you would never collect the money. At the very last moment, Nature would force you to blink your eye. Nature will protect her own. — Dick Gregory

Dogs are great assets to candidates, and the feeling seems to be engendered that if a dog loves the candidate, he can't be all that bad. — Dick Gregory

Martin Luther King taught us all nonviolence. I was told to extend nonviolence to the mother and her calf. — Dick Gregory

We thought I was going to be a great athlete, and we were wrong, and I thought I was going to be a great entertainer, and that wasn't it either. I'm going to be an American Citizen. First class. — Dick Gregory

You know why Madison Avenue advertising has never done well in Harlem? We're the only ones who know what it means to be Brand X. — Dick Gregory

If you can justify killing to eat meat, you can justify the conditions of the ghetto. I cannot justify either one. — Dick Gregory

The jelly-bean eating thug says that national defense is important. But national defense starts at home. — Dick Gregory

Baseball is very big with my people. It figures. It's the only way we can get to shake a bat at a white man without starting a riot. — Dick Gregory

I didn't realize, when I decided to be a comic, that a black person had never been allowed to stand flat-footed in America and talk to white folks. It never happened before. — Dick Gregory

America is 5 percent of the world's population and consumes 96 percent of the world's hard drugs. — Dick Gregory

Because you make me laugh don't make you a comic. A comedian is a person who, that's how they make their living. — Dick Gregory

People keep telling me about the white race and the black race - and it really doesn't make sense. I played Miami, met a fellow two shades darker than me - and his name was Ginsberg! Took my place in two sit-in demonstrations - nobody knew the difference. The he tried for a third lunch counter and blew the whole bit ... asked for blintzes. — Dick Gregory

Eating liver out of a cow's body is like eating the filter out of a car. — Dick Gregory

Once we used to have to crank up our cars, now you can pop it on from inside your house. Everything has changed except how we get freedom. — Dick Gregory

Don't have a high school diploma? You're in my Cabinet. Why? For 200 years, a lot of Cabinets have existed in our government. Powerful men. Well-educated. So let's try something totally new. — Dick Gregory

Wouldn't it be a helluva joke if all this were really burnt cork and you people were being tolerant for nuthin'? — Dick Gregory

A Klaner KKK is a cat who gets out of bed in the middle of the night and takes his sheet with him. — Dick Gregory

The NAACP is a wonderful organization . . . But do you realize if tomorrow morning we had complete integration, all them cats would be outta work? — Dick Gregory

You know, I always say white is not a colour, white is an attitude, and if you haven't got trillions of dollars in the bank that you don't need, you can't be white. — Dick Gregory

Being white is a job in America. You take that away, you better get the soldiers out. — Dick Gregory

I won't say I'm out of condition now - but I even puff going downstairs. — Dick Gregory

Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned. — Dick Gregory

The only thing I like about St. Louis is it has the best zoo in America, in Forest Park. Washington University is next door to the zoo. Animals get out, they're going to eat white people before they get to the ghetto! — Dick Gregory

A friend of mine who works for naval intelligence said an aerial satellite revealed that 1.9 million attended the event in 1995. But if they would have had a rumble at the march the newspapers would have said that 75 million Afro-Americans were there. — Dick Gregory

I feel that the same God-force that is the mother and father of the Pope is also the mother and father of the loneliest wino on the planet. — Dick Gregory

I was born and raised in St. Louis, and this little town, eight blocks away, place no one ever heard of, a black man there commands the attention of the world for months? That ain't my world. — Dick Gregory

I chose to be an agitator. And there's one interesting thing about being an agitator - and I tell people - the next time you put your underwear in the washing machine, take the agitator out, and all you're going to end up with is some dirty, wet drawers. — Dick Gregory

The world is fed by greed. — Dick Gregory

What happens to Black Folks today, happens to White Folks tomorrow. — Dick Gregory

I'm not a comic. I'm a humorist. — Dick Gregory

Revolution ain't nothing but an extent of evolution; Evolution is a fact of nature. So when old folks tell me that they don't understand hip hop and the music is too loud, well I guess it means you're not supposed to be in there. — Dick Gregory

There is a limit on how much information you can keep bottled up. — Dick Gregory

Black folks tell their kids they have to be twice as good as a white person? Well, if I tell a child of mine that, or that they have to be careful - that this is what a cop would do if you do this - they think something is wrong with them. I tell them death is better. — Dick Gregory

Riches do not delight us so much with their possession, as torment us with their loss. — Dick Gregory

The United States is the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet. — Dick Gregory

I would have painted the White House black. I would have! — Dick Gregory

It's cool to be healthy. — Dick Gregory

If all you can do is judge a person by their appearance, because you don't have the spirit to judge someone from within, you're in trouble. — Dick Gregory

I believe young voters will either vote for Obama or not vote at all. So the problem is not Obama the problem is the system. If you think about how mess up this country is most folk really don’t have choices. — Dick Gregory

Race baiters and discriminators may go underground, but they never move out of town. — Dick Gregory

I am one of the funniest people on the planet. — Dick Gregory

You got to die of something because if you die of nothing, they won't pay your insurance. — Dick Gregory

Civil Rights: What black folks are given in the U.S. on the installment plan, as in civil-rights bills. Not to be confused with human rights, which are the dignity, stature, humanity, respect, and freedom belonging to all people by right of their birth. — Dick Gregory

I would never teach a child of mine to be kind to a cop who would shoot you in the back of the head. I would never have that conversation because children don't hear what you mean, they hear what you say. — Dick Gregory

Black Americans are the only people in history who are for education instead of liberation. George Washington wasn't beating up on British for the right to open a college! The line isn't "Give me education or give me death." — Dick Gregory

Audiences feel no hatred from me. Because I'm not bitter. — Dick Gregory

Fear and God do not occupy the same space. — Dick Gregory

Laughter is the best way to release tensions and fears. — Dick Gregory

My mother was the sweetest lady who ever lived on this planet, but if you tried to tell her that Jesus wasn't a Christian, she would stomp you to death. — Dick Gregory

My wife and I went to jail in Selma. The difference when I was back there recently? White folks? No. Black folks who were not scared. I was behind the president this time. When I was a little boy and ran around with trifling dudes, I was the only one scared of dogs. And I was bitten 14 times! Dogs smell scared. And that's the same thing with people: 50 years ago they smelled fear. There was no fear this time. — Dick Gregory

I personally believe breathatarianism to be the highest mode of human living [...] breathing in pure air, absorbing the direct light and energies of the sun, bathing in pure water [...] I look at the obituaries every morning and ain't nobody listed but you eaters. — Dick Gregory

At the very last moment, Nature would force you to blink your eye. Nature will protect her own. — Dick Gregory

Truth is the baby of the world. It never gets old. — Dick Gregory

If democracy is such a good thing, let's have more of it. — Dick Gregory

America has the mightiest military on the planet, and they didn't get there with entertainers. — Dick Gregory

I consider myself always a humorist. And I think anybody who tells jokes or makes people laugh is humor. — Dick Gregory

That's easy, to stand in a nightclub, where most of the people that come in, they came to see you. — Dick Gregory

I tell people, 'If you want to send a message to the White House, call my house. — Dick Gregory

When I went south in the 1960s, I knew I could die. If I went down there and did what I did up in Chicago and made all of those hatin' white folks laugh, then I would have been defeated. — Dick Gregory

I don't know why America always thinks she has to run all around the world forcing people to take our way of governance at the barrel of a gun. When you've got something really good, you don't have to force it on people. They will steal it! — Dick Gregory

Black conservatives have a right to exist, but why would I want to walk around with a swastika on my shirt after the way Hitler done messed it up? — Dick Gregory

When I tune into my beautiful self, I get happiness. Everything in the universe belongs to me. — Dick Gregory

When you've got something really good, you don't have to force it on people. They will steal it! — Dick Gregory

Let me tell you, never before in the history of this planet has anybody made the progress that African-Americans have made in a 30-year period, in spite of many black folks and white folks lying to one another. — Dick Gregory

Whenever the dollar is held supreme and capitalistic interests dominate, a higher value will always be placed upon property rights than upon human rights. — Dick Gregory

Pets are found to suffer from all the ailments known to the human. — Dick Gregory

And we love to dance -- especially that new one called the Civil War Twist. The Northern part of you stands still while the Southern part tries to secede. — Dick Gregory

In the South they don't mind how close I get, so long as I don't get too big. In the North they don't mind how big I get, so long as I don't get too close. — Dick Gregory

The funniest jokes you know aren't from comics but relatives, friends - from your life. That's the funniest stuff. — Dick Gregory

So why would I want to call myself a conservative after the way them white racist thugs have used that word to hide behind? They call themselves new Republicans. — Dick Gregory

America is concerned more with the possibility of moon folks than the reality of hungry poor folks. — Dick Gregory

The most difficult thing to get people to do is to accept the obvious. — Dick Gregory

Life Lessons by Dick Gregory

1. Dick Gregory taught us to stay true to our values and beliefs, no matter what the cost. He was a strong advocate for civil rights and social justice, and he was willing to sacrifice his own comfort and safety to stand up for what he believed in.
2. He also showed us the power of humor in the face of adversity. He used comedy to draw attention to the injustices of the world, and to bring people together to fight for a better future.
3. Lastly, Dick Gregory showed us the importance of self-care. He was a tireless activist, but he also made sure to take time for himself and to nurture his own wellbeing.