Harrison Bergeron Quotes

… many people must be ruled to thrive. In their selfishness and greed, they see free people as their oppressors. They wish to have a leader who will cut the taller plants so the sun will reach them. They think no plant should be allowed to grow taller than the shortest, and in that way give light to all. They would rather be provided a guiding light, regardless of the fuel, than light a candle themselves.

He tried. That's the big thing. He tried to do the best he could with what God gave him. He should get a nice raise for trying so hard.

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General.

Equality of condition, though it is certainly a basic requirement for justice, is nevertheless among the greatest and most uncertain ventures of modern mankind. The more equal conditions are, the less explanation there is for the differences that actually exist between people; and thus all the more unequal do individuals and groups become. This perplexing consequence came fully to light as soon as equality was no longer seen in terms of an omnipotent being like God or an unavoidable common destiny like death. Whenever equality becomes a mundane fact in itself, without any gauge by which it may be measured or explained, then there is one chance in a hundred that it will be recognized simply as a working principle of a political organization in which otherwise unequal people have equal rights; there are ninety-nine chances that it will be mistaken for an innate quality of every individual, who is “normal” if he is like everybody else and “abnormal” if he happens to be different. This perversion of equality from a political into a social concept is all the more dangerous when a society leaves but little space for special groups and individuals, for then their differences become all the more conspicuous.

He flung away his rubber-ball nose, revealed a man that would have awed Thor, the god of thunder.

They leaped like deer on the moon.

I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook. "Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become !

Diversity is a strength. It’s like the shrieking radios permanently attached to bright people’s ears in the Kurt Vonnegut story “Harrison Bergeron,” to prevent them from using their superior intelligence. Contrary to everything you’ve heard, never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a disaster.

I am the Emperor!" cried Harrison. "Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!" He stamped his foot and the studio shook. "Even as I stand here" he bellowed, "crippled, hobbled, sickened - I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become.

Such hard personal experiences lead me to feel that anyone who seriously thinks “white male privilege” exists in 2015 is either a liar or a moron—probably both. The way the deck is stacked these days, being a white male is a disadvantage that hobbles you Harrison Bergeron-style in any dispute with someone who isn’t a white male. When I think of all the taxes that are bled for me in a doomed ‘n’ dimwitted quest to achieve “social justice” at my expense…and when I ponder that modern media and academia are on an unfettered defamation rampage against all things white and male…it sometimes feels as if all of life is a soft mugging.

Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she couldn't think about anything except in short bursts. And George, while his intelligence was way above normal, had a little mental handicap radio in his ear. He was required by law to wear it at all times. It was tuned to a government transmitter. Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep people like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.

On the television screen were ballerinas. A buzzer sounded in George's head. His thoughts fled in panic, like bandits from a burglar alarm. "That was a real pretty dance, that dance they just did," said Hazel. "Huh" said George. "That dance-it was nice," said Hazel. "Yup," said George. He tried to think a little about the ballerinas. They weren't really very good-no better than anybody else would have been, anyway. They were burdened with sashweights and bags of birdshot, and their faces were masked, so that no one, seeing a free and graceful gesture or a pretty face, would feel like something the cat drug in. George was toying with the vague notion that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped. But he didn't get very far with it before another noise in his ear radio scattered his thoughts. George winced. So did two out of the eight ballerinas.

George came back in with the beer, paused while a handicap signal shook him up. And then he sat down again. "You been crying" he said to Hazel. "Yup," she said. "What about?" he said. "I forget," she said. "Something real sad on television." "What was it?" he said. "It's all kind of mixed up in my mind," said Hazel. "Forget sad things," said George. "I always do," said Hazel. "That's my girl," said George. He winced. There was the sound of a rivetting gun in his head. "Gee - I could tell that one was a doozy," said Hazel. "You can say that again," said George. "Gee-" said Hazel, "I could tell that one was a doozy.

Harrison and his Empress merely listened to the music for a while - listened gravely, as though synchronizing their heartbeats with it. They shifted their weights to their toes. Harrison placed his big hands on the girls tiny waist, letting her sense the weightlessness that would soon be hers. And then, in an explosion of joy and grace, into the air they sprang!

The ideal writer for the TV medium is a fella or a gal with a smidgen of talent, a lot of gall, and the soul of a drone. In Hollywood’s current and exquisitely vulgar parlance, he or she must “give good meeting.” Let any of these qualifications be tampered with, and the writer is apt to start feeling like poor old Harrison Bergeron.

Nietzsche’s diagnosis of deicide mutated into a malignant iconoclasm, not in the name of strength and life-affirming values as he had hoped, but in a “Harrison Bergeron”-style handicapping of all aspirational ideals.