Florynce Kennedy Quotes

Countermovements among racists and sexists and nazifiers are just as relentless as dirt on a coffee table. . . . Every housewife knows that if you don't sooner or later dust . . . the whole place will be dirty again.

It's interesting to speculate how it developed that in two of the most anti-feminist institutions, the church and the law court, the men are wearing the dresses.

Unity in a Movement situation can be overrated. If you were the Establishment, which would you rather see coming in the door: one lion or five hundred mice?

Now, see there. Just because I'm wearing my Super-Dike sweatshirt, you think I'm a lesbian. I guess if I were wearing a string of pearls, you'd think I was an oyster.

I approve of anyone wearing what the establishment says you must not wear.

Nail polish or false eyelashes isn't politics. If you have good politics, what you wear is irrelevant. I don't take dictation from the pig-o-cratic style setters who say I should dress like a middle-aged lady. My politics don't depend on whether my tits are in or out of a bra.

At my age...I'm going to do what I want and I haven't got time for anything else.

There's a difference between Vaselining the rapee and catching the rapist.

I know we're termites. But if all the termites got together, the house would fall down.

What you must understand is oppression does not end with the niggers. It does not end with the poor people, it doesn't end with the women, or the pregnant women. It goes on up the line to the executive who has his bag searched in the airport.

Prostitutes don't sell their bodies, they rent their bodies. Housewives sell their bodies when they get married.

... anybody with the brains and energy to become a teacher ought to want to become something better.

The biggest sin is sitting on your ass.

Niggerization is the result of oppression -- and it doesn't just apply to the black people. Old people, poor people, and students can also get niggerized.

When a system of oppression has become institutionaliz ed it is unnecessary for individuals to be oppressive

The question arises whether all lawyers are the same. This is like asking whether everything that gets into a sewer is garbage.

Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism.

Horizontal hostility may be expressed in sibling rivalry or in competitive dueling which wrecks not only office tranquility or suburban domesticity but also some radical political groups and, it must be sadly said, some women's liberation groups. ... [it is] misdirected anger that rightly should be focused on the external causes of oppression.

Being a mother is a noble status, right? Right. So why does it change when you put 'unwed' or 'welfare' in front of it?

The spending of our tax dollars by the Pentagon represents the greatest social disease of our country; I call it Pentagonorrhea.

I think unity is a mistake.... If I were the Establishment and had the big loaded guns of the various oppressive institutions....I would much prefer to see one lion come through the door than 500 mice.

Trying to help an oppressed person is like trying to put your arm around somebody with a sunburn.

... tobacco kills 52,000 people a year from lung cancer, and there's no telling how many lives have been ruined through drinking.But to my knowledge, no one has ever died of a blow job.

Freedom is like taking a bath: You got to keep doing it every day.

You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that you're in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun.

There's no way that I know of to avoid pain absolutely, but suffering is the interpretation we choose to place on the pain we encounter.

I'm just a loud-mouthed middle-aged colored lady with a fused spine and three feet of intestines missing and a lot of people think I'm crazy. Maybe you do too, but I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. The mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.

Don't agonize, organize.

Here I am a woman attorney being told I can't practice law in slacks by a judge dressed in drag.

I never stop to wonder why I'm not like other people. They mystery to me is why more people aren't like me.

Women are dirt searchers; their greatest worth is irradicating rings on collars and tables. Never mind real-estate boards' corruption and racism, here's your soapsuds. Everything she is doing is peripheral, expendable, crucial, and non-negotiable. Cleanliness is next to godliness.

Any woman who still thinks marriage is a fifty-fifty proposition is only proving that she doesn't understand either men or percentages.

Don't agonise, organise.

Unless you are political or intellectual, events like the Depression are seen as personal events. We thought of the Depression as something that made the pipes freeze; we thought it hit us because Daddy didn't move his taxi stand and because he broke his hip. It was only later I found out it was a national phenomenon.

Oppressed people are frequendy very oppressive when first liberated. And why wouldn't they be? They know best two positions. Somebody's foot on their neck or their foot on somebody's neck.

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

You can't dump one cup of sugar into the ocean and expect to get syrup. If everybody sweetened her own cup of water, then things would begin to change.

A liberation struggle is like a struggle against dirt. No matter what type of bath you takein three weeks you'll smell like you've never seen a bathtub. What we don't understand about a liberation struggle is you never win it, any more than you "win" clean dishes. As soon as you eat on them, the dishes are dirty again.