Be yourself on stage. Nobody else can be you and you have the law of supply and demand covered.
Bill HicksRead
When you're...stepping over a guy on the sidewalk...does it ever occur to you to think, 'Wow. Maybe our system doesn't work?'
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote challenges the effectiveness of societal systems when individuals overlook the suffering of others.
Bill Hicks uses this quote to provoke thought about the way society often becomes desensitized to the suffering around us. He highlights a moment of apathy, asking the reader to reflect on their own behavior and the broader implications of ignoring the plight of others. The quote suggests that such indifference might indicate a larger failure in our societal systems, urging individuals to reconsider their roles and responsibilities in fostering empathy and compassion.
Themes
SocietyIndifferenceEmpathyReflectionSystems
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social responsibility, this quote can highlight the need for individuals to acknowledge societal failures.
More from Bill Hicks
All quotes βI'm not into those kind of rivalries. I remember standing out in front of Stratford, minding my own business. Carload of about eighty kids would pull up: 'STRATFORD SUCKS!' Am I supposed to run after these guys? I'd just stand there, you know. They'd back up. 'STRATFORD SUCKS! ...STRATFORD SUCKS!' I'd say, 'I know. I go there. You're wasting gas, man.
Bill HicksRead
I go to dance clubs...about once a year just to justify the other 364 days I spend in my apartment going 'God, what idiots!'
Bill HicksRead
Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally on our planet, serves a thousand different functions, all of them positive. To make marijuana against the law is like saying that God made a mistake.
Bill HicksRead
To make marijuana against the law is like saying God made a big mistake.
Bill HicksRead
What do you say we lighten things up and talk about abortion?
Bill HicksRead
Similar quotes
I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Anytime someone says your God is ugly and you release your God and join their God, there is no hope for your freedom until you once more believe in your own concept of the 'deity.'
John Henrik ClarkeRead
Never had I understood that I command, with absolute authority, the ship of my life! I decide its mission and rules and discipline, at my word waits every tool and sail, every cannon, the strength of every soul on board. I'm master of a team of passionate skills to sail me through hell's own jaws the second I nod the direction to steer.
Richard BachRead
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
John Stuart MillRead
Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.
Jean CocteauRead
I don't write about good and evil with this enormous dichotomy. I write about people. I write about people doing the kinds of things that people do.
Octavia E. ButlerRead