“Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous.”
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Detroit, Michigan (12 April 1964)
Context: And 1964 looks like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet. Why does it look like it might be the year of the ballot or the bullet? Because Negroes have listened to the trickery, and the lies, and the false promises of the white man now for too long. And they’re fed up. They’ve become disenchanted. They’ve become disillusioned. They’ve become dissatisfied, and all of this has built up frustrations in the black community that makes the black community throughout today more explosive than all of the atomic bombs the Russians can ever invent. Whenever you got a racial powder keg sitting in your lap, you’re in more trouble than if you had an atomic powder keg sitting in your lap. When a racial powder keg goes off, it doesn’t care who it knocks out the way. Understand this, it’s dangerous.
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Malcolm X 180
American human rights activist 1925–1965Related quotes
No record of this quotation appears to exist in German.
In The World Crisis, Vol I: 1911-1914 https://books.google.com/books?id=6l6Fgnz8fXIC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q&f=false (originally published in 1923), Winston Churchill asserted that during the July Crisis, German shipping magnate and diplomat Albert Ballin told him that Bismarck had said to him, "that one day the great European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" a year before his death.
The full quote above appears in "European Diary" by Andrei Navrozov, in Chronicles Vol. 32 (2008) as a comment during the Congress of Berlin in 1878. "European Diary" is a series of excerpts from Navrozov's unpublished (as of 2017) novel in English, Earthly Love: A Day in the Life of a Hypocrite.
Disputed
“To face the powder, not powder the face.”
Translation of "不爱红装爱武装" (line from "Militia Women", a 1961 poem by Mao Zedong), in Illustrated Poems of Mao Zedong, trans. Xu Yuanchong (Beijing: China Intercontinental Press, 2006), p. 102
“Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry.”
Popularized by Blacker in the poem "Oliver's Advice", http://books.google.com/books?id=JmEaAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Oliver%27s+Advice%22+Cromwell&q=%22Oliver%27s+Advice%22+Cromwell#v=snippet&q=%22Oliver's%20Advice%22%20Cromwell&f=false published under the pseudonym Fitz Stewart in The Dublin University Magazine, December 1834, p. 700; where the quote is attributed to Oliver Cromwell (hence the poem's title). The repeated line in the poem is "Put your trust in God, my boys, but keep your powder dry."
Misattributed
“Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry.”
Attributed by William Blacker (not to be confused with Valentine Blacker), who popularized the quote with his poem "Oliver's Advice" http://books.google.com/books?id=JmEaAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Oliver%27s+Advice%22+Cromwell&q=%22Oliver%27s+Advice%22+Cromwell#v=snippet&q=%22Oliver's%20Advice%22%20Cromwell&f=false, published under the pseudonym Fitz Stewart in The Dublin University Magazine, December 1834, p. 700; where the attribution to Cromwell appears in a footnote describing a "well-authenticated anecdote" that explains the poem's title. The repeated line in Blacker's poem is "Put your trust in God, my boys, but keep your powder dry".
Attributed
Variant: Trust in God and keep your powder dry.
Variant: Put your trust in God, but keep your powder dry.
Source: Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum and the Battle between the ‘Free Left’ and the ‘Statist Left', (2019), p. 72
“Have faith in God but keep your powder dry.”
“Put your trust in God, my boys, and keep your powder dry!”
From the poem "Oliver's Advice" http://books.google.com/books?id=JmEaAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Oliver%27s+Advice%22+Cromwell&q=%22Oliver%27s+Advice%22+Cromwell#v=snippet&q=%22Oliver's%20Advice%22%20Cromwell&f=false by William Blacker, published under the pseudonym Fitz Stewart in The Dublin University Magazine, December 1834, p. 700. This line by a different Colonel Blacker is paraphrased from an attribution to Oliver Cromwell (hence the poem's title).
Misattributed
“The powder is mixed with water and tastes exactly like powder mixed with water.”
On liquid diets, in New York Herald Tribune (29 December 1960).