Be yourself on stage. Nobody else can be you and you have the law of supply and demand covered.
Bill HicksRead
See we just had a misunderstanding. I thought we lived in the U.S. of A., the United States of America. But actually we live in the U.S. of A., the United States of Advertising. Freedom of expression is guaranteed? If you've got the money!
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the commercialization of freedom and expression in America.
Bill Hicks highlights a significant irony in American society, where the ideals of freedom of expression are subverted by the influence of advertising and capitalism. He suggests that true freedom is conditional, often dependent on one's economic status, casting doubt on the authenticity of liberties supposedly enjoyed by all citizens in the United States.
Themes
FreedomAdvertisingCapitalismExpressionSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about media influence in a political debate.
More from Bill Hicks
All quotes →I'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
This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God.
William LawRead
Negro blood is sure powerful, because just one drop of black blood makes a colored man. One drop--you are a Negro! . . . Black is powerful.
Langston HughesRead
When we say gender is performed, we usually mean that we've taken on a role or we're acting in some way and that our acting or our role playing is crucial to the gender that we are and the gender that we present to the world.
Judith ButlerRead
Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language.
Ursula K. Le GuinRead
We remain more than a collection of red states and blue states. We are and forever will be the United States of America.
Barack ObamaRead
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.
Mother TeresaRead