Charles Bukowski Quotes

I'm a real person, and I'm angry. I'm trying to use this celebrity thing to get people some help. AIDS, poverty, racism - I want to be one of the hands that helps stop all that. I'll put it on my shoulders. I'll charge it to my account.

If all of us acted in unison as I act individually there would be no wars and no poverty. I have made myself personally responsible for the fate of every human being who has come my way.

While women weep, as they do now, I'll fight While little children go hungry, as they do now, I'll fight While men go to prison, in and out, in and out, as they do now, I'll fight While there is a drunkard left, While there is a poor lost girl upon the streets, While there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I'll fight-I'll fight to the very end!

A different world cannot be built by indifferent people.

Some of the greatest social reformers of our time were wealthy.

You really can change the world if you care enough.

Survival is a privilege which entails obligations. I am forever asking myself what I can do for those who have not survived.

I do this because it pleases me, and there is nothing I would not do so as human effort goes, to advance any movement designed to reach and rescue perishing humanity. I have a heart for others and that is why I am in this work. When I see suffering about me, I myself suffer, and so when I put forth my efforts to relieve others, I am simply working for myself. I do not consider that I have made any sacrifice whatever; no man does unless he violates his conscience

It is the moral force which carries a movement forward.

That's the difference between governments and individuals. Governments don't care, individuals do.

Somehow, the guys in power have to be reached by counter-power, or through a change in their hearts and minds, or change will not come.

Politics, in general, when you're trying to change the world for the better in any kind of way, no matter how small or how big, it's inches.

The true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love. It is impossible to think of a genuine revolutionary lacking this quality.

If you care about other people, you might try to organize to undermine power and authority. That's not going to happen if you care only about yourself.

I'm very mindful of trying to do something good in the world. When I see injustice in the world, it's very hard for me.

I have struggled in life and this has made me sensitive towards the needs of others. Politics gives you the opportunity to really do something.

Education leads to enlightenment. Enlightenment opens the way to empathy. Empathy foreshadows reform.

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change.

To be a revolutionary you have to be a human being. You have to care about people who have no power.

It was a very profound experience, getting in touch with that part of us, in all of us human beings, that is committed beyond yourself to the point of giving everything you have, including your life, for other people, for your fellow man.

For the cause that lacks assistance, the wrong that needs resistance, for the future in the distance, and the good that I can do.

Philanthropy is activism.

I was a very serious young man, very committed to saving the world.

An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.

People are not considerate of others. They tend not to consider themselves as all living together, but see themselves only as individuals.