The Best Ruby Dee quotes

Marriage is more complex than we think. — Ruby Dee

It is so calming, marriage. — Ruby Dee

Sorrow for not understanding like I understand now the unpredictable, profound journey that marriage is. — Ruby Dee

Marriage is really an exciting adventure. — Ruby Dee

It takes a long time to really be married. One marries many times at many levels within that marriage. If you have more marriages than you have divorces within the marriage, you’re lucky and you stick it out. — Ruby Dee

I don’t know who I would be if I weren’t this child from Harlem, this woman from Harlem. It’s in me so deep. — Ruby Dee

The Divine Impulse–it’s always safe to follow it. We’ve got to trust it and go wherever it takes us. Especially women. — Ruby Dee

We women have a great function to perform. The world needs us. — Ruby Dee

Black women have to know the historical and everyday struggles of black men, and our men have to know the struggles of black women in America. — Ruby Dee

The nature of racism is that it grinds down the soul of the man more finely than it does the soul of the woman. When you want to conquer a people or subject it, you destroy the male component. — Ruby Dee

Commitment’ is a marvelous word. — Ruby Dee

The kind of beauty I want most is the hard–to–get kind that comes from within–strength, courage, dignity. — Ruby Dee

When you know my love, my love will warm you. — Ruby Dee

You have to learn how to be married. You have to learn to love somebody. — Ruby Dee

That we arrived at fifty years together is due as much to luck as to love, and a talent for knowing, when we stumble, where to fall, and how to get up again. — Ruby Dee

I never thought about myself as an activist when we were coming along. I love the people I love. I didn’t care whether they could be a Democrat, Republican, communist… anything but a racist. — Ruby Dee

Paradise is to be the ultimate instrument, fulfilling God’s desperate intent that we love each other. — Ruby Dee

Marriage, like love, is an aspiration. It’s a process. — Ruby Dee

I have this deep love for authors. I think that we don’t do enough to encourage love of words and love of books. — Ruby Dee

African–americans have a lot to teach the world. — Ruby Dee

The world has improved mostly because unorthodox people did unorthodox things. Not surprisingly, they had the courage and daring to think they could make a difference. — Ruby Dee

Is it safe and sane to only have one political and economic system by which everyone in the world can live? Or can we explore and share? God never made one of anything. — Ruby Dee

I pray with my whole soul that the divide–and–conquerers among us will not triumph over us. We need each other in this world so desperately. — Ruby Dee

God has use for all the old people. — Ruby Dee

That’s what being young is all about. You have the courage and the daring to think that you can make a difference. You’re not prone to measure your energies in time. You’re not likely to live by equations. — Ruby Dee

Among whom the gods bless, high on the list are the music people, who tune into celestial vibe–brations and give mortals a taste of immortal sensations. — Ruby Dee

We are all a tiger with feelings. An elephant who never forgets. We are tiger, panther, monkey–we are all of these things, all of the life rhythms. — Ruby Dee

You know? — Sidney Poitier

You hear people say, ‘We take our Tennessee Williams very seriously. There is no laughter here.’ It’s full of humor! Not to laugh is a big, bad mistake! — Ruby Dee

There is a place for people 65 and older that no other age group can fit. We have nothing to lose. Some of us have a couple pennies. We can go out now and really be revolutionaries. — Ruby Dee

Life can’t die. It’s a contradiction. — Ruby Dee

I’m proud of doing ‘Long Day’s Journey into Night,’ for which I won an ACE award. — Ruby Dee

Racism is a very insidious thing. It’s dangerous to the psyche, to mind and body. It erodes the self–confidence. And I don’t know how we get through it. — Ruby Dee

My whole life is not defined by what Hollywood does. — Ruby Dee

My stepmother wanted to be an actress. — Ruby Dee

Art is in the process of redefining our relationships to each other … The creative minds are bubbling, bubbling, and I know the soup that’s coming up next time is going to feed a lot more of us. — Ruby Dee

Revolutionaries don’t get job security. — Ruby Dee

God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear. — Ruby Dee

You can’t be all you are meant to be if you think you are better than others, and you can’t be all you are meant to be if you think you are less than others, either. — Ruby Dee

You’re not supposed to go into business with the sole purpose of putting your neighbor out of business. This is not the United States of Corporate America. — Ruby Dee

So much of life, it seems, is determined by pure randomness. — Sidney Poitier

Gangsters lived in the neighborhood. They weren’t apart from it. Their relationships with people were both benevolent and scary. — Ruby Dee

My experience for myself as a performer is not one of high expectations. — Ruby Dee

We don’t realize how much racism has tainted our self–image as human beings. — Ruby Dee