Dick Gregory Quotes & Sayings

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

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

When you have a good mother and no father, God kind of sits in. It's not enough, but it helps. — Dick Gregory

Once I realised the value of making people laugh, I got very good at it. Fast. — Dick Gregory

When I lost my rifle, the Army charged me 85 dollars. That is why in the Navy the Captain goes down with the ship. — Dick Gregory

People with high blood pressure, diabetes - those are conditions brought about by life style. If you change the life style, those conditions will leave. — 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

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

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

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

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

You hear entertainers all the time, saying, 'If I couldn't get paid for this, I'd do it for free.' When's the last time you ever heard a business person say, 'If I couldn't get paid for being chairman of British Petroleum, I'd do it for free'? — Dick Gregory

When I first broke through, there was only NBC, CBS and ABC, and they had news in the morning and in the evening - there wasn't no 24-hour news. — Dick Gregory

When I go through the airport and see white women walking through the airport barefooted, like athlete's feet don't exist, there's something wrong. — Dick Gregory

I never thought I'd see the day that I would see white folks as frightened, or more so, than black folks was during the civil rights movement when we was in Mississippi. — 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

I never learned hate at home or shame. I had to go to school for that. — Dick Gregory

The free man is the man with no fears. — 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

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

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

Now here's what I'm saying: I've always believed that every other month we hear about compromisation of bank records, I think that's the CIA and the FBI. Now let me tell you why I'm saying this. I don't believe no insignificant pip-squeak is going to be able to pull this off month after month and we can't find out what's going on. — 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

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

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

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

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. — Dick Gregory

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

America will tolerate the taking of a human life without giving it a second thought. But don't misuse a household pet. — 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

It was an unwritten law that black comics were not permitted to work white nightclubs. You could sing and you could dance, but you couldn't stand flat-footed and talk; that was a no-no. — Dick Gregory

I am really enjoying the new Martin Luther King Jr stamp - just think about all those white bigots, licking the backside of a black man. — Dick Gregory

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

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

Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge. — Dick Gregory

If they took all the drugs, nicotine, alcohol and caffeine
off the market for six days, they'd have to bring out the
tanks to control you. — Dick Gregory

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

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

I wouldn't mind paying taxes - if I knew they were going to a friendly country. — Dick Gregory

My belief is, you know, certain things have to be explained that's never been explained. — Dick Gregory

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

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

Coconut milk is the only thing on this planet that comes identically to mother's milk. — 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

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

Poor is a state of mind you never grow out of, but being broke is just a temporary condition. — Dick Gregory

To me, seeing a really great comedian is a bit like watching a musician or a poet. — Dick Gregory

No being should be killed. No being should be unloved. — 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

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

When you look at Hitler and those thugs, you can put Walmart right next to them. — 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

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

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

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

Some kind of way, we have to say enough is enough. — Dick Gregory

I was learning that just being a Negro doesn't qualify you to understand the race situation any more than being sick makes you an expert on medicine. — Dick Gregory

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people. — Dick Gregory

If it wasn't for Abe Lincoln, I'd still be on the open market. — Dick Gregory

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. — 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

When I was a boy, I was taught never to use insulting expressions like, 'I've been gypped,' or, 'He welshed on the deal.' — Dick Gregory

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

I buy about $1,500 worth of papers every month. Not that I trust them. I'm looking for the crack in the fabric. — 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

There's a God force inside of you that gives you a will to live. — Dick Gregory

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

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

I went to Ethiopia, and it dawned on me that you can tell a starving, malnourished person because they've got a bloated belly and a bald head. And I realized that if you come through any American airport and see businessmen running through with bloated bellies and bald heads, that's malnutrition, too. — 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

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

I used to get letters saying, 'I didn't know black children and white children were the same.' — 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

Love is very dangerous if you just have love and don't have the ability to be lovable. — Dick Gregory

I'm not a comic. I'm a humorist. — 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

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

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

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

I waited at the counter of a white restaurant for eleven years. When they finally integrated, they didn't have what I wanted. — Dick Gregory

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

[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

It's cool to be healthy. — Dick Gregory

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

Every holiday on the calendar, I check in a hotel and fast - I don't eat, I don't drink, I don't talk. — 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

Everything we do we should look at in terms of millions of people who can't afford it. — Dick Gregory

Life isn't a race. It's a relay. — Dick Gregory

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

Why are black folks singing Amazing Grace which is a song about a white slaver's conversion? — Dick Gregory

Momma, a welfare cheater. A criminal who couldn't stand to se her kids go hungry, or grow up in slumbs and end up mugging people in dar corners. I guess the system didn't want her to get off relief, the way it kept sending social workers around to be sure Momma wasn't trying to make things better. — Dick Gregory