Displacement Quotes

• I know why the caged bird sings.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Children, Book

  Title of book (1969), taken from the last line of "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar in Lyrics of Hearthside (1899). Cf. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1979) 567:10

  39 Copy quote

  Show source

• The challenge of ending displacement is inseparable from the challenge of establishing and maintaining peace. When wars end, farmers return to their fields; children return to school; violence against women declines; trade and economic activity resume; medical and other services become more accessible, and the international focus changes from relief to development and self-sufficiency. All this makes new wars less likely. It is a virtuous cycle that deserves nurture and support.

  Kenneth Bacon

  Children, War, School

  13 Copy quote

• I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability — the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.

  Aleksandar Hemon

  Waiting, Care, Existence

  6 Copy quote

• The world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades.

  Barack Obama

  Together, Climate, Fuel

  Awake! magazine, November 2011.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Yet if there's no reason to live without a child, how could there be with one? To answer one life with a successive life is simply to transfer the onus of purpose to the next generation; the displacements amounts to a cowardly and potentially infinite delay. Your children's answer, presumably, will be to procreate as well, and in doing so to distract themselves, to foist their own aimlessness onto their offspring.

  Lionel Shriver

  Children, Generations, Purpose

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.255, Counterpoint Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Worry and worship cannot exist in the same space. One always displaces the other. Choose worship.

  Louie Giglio

  Space, Worry, Worship

  Twitter post from Jul 22, 2014

  177 Copy quote

  Show source

• If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.

  Maya Angelou

  Girl, Growing Up, Southern

  1969 I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings, opening section.

  57 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is about this very abstract sense of displacement that he feels the moment he turns off the television.

  Atom Egoyan

  Television, Moments, Abstract

  Interview with Ron Burnett, rburnett.squarespace.com.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Humility is the displacement of self by the enthronement of God.

  Andrew Murray

  Humility, Self

  Andrew Murray, Donna Partow (2001). “Humility: The Journey Toward Holiness”, p.69, Bethany House

  59 Copy quote

  Show source

• Listening is not a displacement for leadership. You have to have leadership.

  Angelo Sotira

  Listening

  6 Copy quote

• Inspiration comes from displacement. Get out of your comfort zone, the rewards are legion.

  Bob Lefsetz

  Inspiration, Comfort, Rewards

  7 Copy quote

• We need to define gentrification as separate from the process of displacement.

  Justin Davidson

  Needs, Process, Gentrification

  39 Copy quote

• What? she said once to herself, and then once aloud, What? She felt a total displacement, like a spinning globe brought to a sudden halt by the light touch of a finger. How did she end up here, like this? How could there have been so much - so many moments, so many people and things, so many razors and pillows, timepieces and subtle coffins - without her being aware? How did her life live itself without her?

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Light, People, Coffins

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.132, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• One of the drivers of displacement and potential conflict over the next 10 to 20 years will be climate (change) - resource scarcity, climate change is going to compound the cocktail that's driving war and displacement.

  Ed Miliband

  Change, War, Years

  6 Copy quote

• The Olympics are too powerful. I hate sports - they generate so much nationalism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, economic exploitation, displacement of communities to build worthless bankrupt stadiums.

  Terre Thaemlitz

  Sports, Powerful, Hate

  Source: pitchfork.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.

  Joseph Goebbels

  Hatred, Target, Propaganda

  2861 Copy quote

• I think you write only out of a great trouble. A trouble of excitement, a trouble of enlargement, a trouble of displacement in yourself.

  Eleanor Clark

  Writing, Thinking, Enlargement

  4 Copy quote

• We now know that climate change is a driver of migration, and is expected to increase the displacement of populations.

  Mary Robinson

  Change, Climate, Population

  13 Copy quote

• The drafters of the [Refugee Convention ] had the Cold War in mind and mainly sought to protect a few thousand dissidents from the Communist bloc. They did not envision the mass displacements of people we are seeing today.

  Kofi Annan

  War, People, Mind

  Source: www.accaglobal.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I do miss the excitement of seeing history up close, of having intimate knowledge, through direct experience, of what happens when people and governments clash, but I do not miss the danger or the constant displacement.

  Deborah Copaken

  Government, People, Missing

  4 Copy quote

• I've spent my whole life in Chicago being asked where am I from, so that I have a sense of displacement that also is very psychologically disorienting.

  Ana Castillo

  Chicago, Whole Life, Whole

  23 Copy quote

• There are some people who cannot get onto a train without imagining that they are about to voyage into the significant unknown; as though the notion of movement were inseparably connected with the notion of discovery, as though each displacement of the body were a displacement of the soul.

  Margaret Drabble

  Travel, Discovery, People

  6 Copy quote

• I think the global community always has a ... has a responsibility to any humanitarian crisis. And I think it's in our best interest to address a humanitarian crisis on this scale because displacement can can lead to a lot of instability and aggression.

  Angelina Jolie

  Responsibility, Thinking, Community

  "CNN interviews Angelina Jolie". Interview with Arwa Damon, edition.cnn.com. February 7, 2008.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Syria has become the great tragedy of this century - a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history.

  Antonio Guterres

  Suffering, Tragedy, Humanitarian

  "Deborah Amos on Syria’s Refugee Crisis". "Moyers & Company" with Phil Donahue, billmoyers.com. September 6, 2013.

  35 Copy quote

  Show source

• Can we disregard the growing phenomenon of "environmental refugees", people who are forced by the degradation of their natural habitat to forsake it - and often their possessions as well - in order to face the dangers and uncertainties of forced displacement? Can we remain impassive in the face of actual and potential conflicts involving access to natural resources? All these are issues with a profound impact on the exercise of human rights, such as the right to life, food, health and development.

  Pope Benedict XVI

  Exercise, Order, Issues

  Pope Benedict XVI (2014). “The Garden of God”, p.41, CUA Press

  6 Copy quote

  Show source