"As long as I am nothing but a ghost of the civil dead, I can do nothing"
- Jack Henry Abbott
About this Quote
This quote by Jack Henry Abbott talks with the powerlessness of those that are marginalized as well as suppressed. Abbott is recommending that as long as he is a ghost of the civil dead, he is unable to make any type of purposeful change in his life. This talks to the concept that those who are suppressed are not able to make their voices listened to or to make any type of real progression in their lives. Abbott is suggesting that he is unable to make any kind of actual influence on the globe around him, and that he is instead relegated to the sidelines, incapable to make any type of real difference. This quote talks to the powerlessness of those who are oppressed and also marginalized, and the requirement for those in power to recognize and also attend to the problems that these people encounter.
"The Helicon of too many poets is not a hill crowned with sunshine and visited by the Muses and the Graces, but an old, mouldering house, full of gloom and haunted by ghosts"