20th-century Activist Quotes

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Malcolm X

Yoko Ono

Henning Mankell

Stephen Fry

Langston Hughes

Susan Sontag

I remember one thing that marred this time for me; the movie "Gone with the Wind." When it played in Mason [MI], I was the only Negro in the theater, and when Butterfly McQueen went into her act, I felt like crawling under the rug.

When you least expect it, someone may actually listen to what you have to say.

Growing hemp as nature designed it is vital to our urgent need to reduce greenhouse gases and ensure the survival of our planet.

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don't dare express themselves as we did.

I think the inconveniences of a segregated education are much greater than the inconveniences of busing students so that they can get an integrated quality education.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you had told me 28 years ago that the largest organization in the world touching the lives of gays and lesbians would be a church, I would not have believed you. So many members of the lesbian and gay community feel they have had violence done to them by religious groups that it is very difficult to evangelize any members of our community. But we do evangelize.

Our very strength as lesbians lies in the fact that we are outside of patriarchy; our existence challenges its life.

Charlotte Bunch

To me, a good family is the basis of democracy and is democratic to the core. That's why the feminists had to destroy it.

You run a major risk when you assume that you alone have all the answers: You don't, and that's okay. You don't have to be afraid to admit there are certain things you either don't like to do or aren't any good at. You reach a goal by covering all your bases, and you cover all your bases by hiring good people.

Georgette Mosbacher

Tree sitting is a last resort. When you see someone sitting in a tree trying to protect it, you know that every level of our society has failed.

Julia Butterfly Hill

I saw the people who were singing. Young young boys like myself, all of them with gun and uniform It is that uniform that I like very much. When I see how they are all marching, prouding and singing, I am very happy. But when I see all their uniform shining and very very nice to see, I cannot tell you how I am feeling. Immediately I know that this soza is wonderful thing.

We didn't come all this way for no two seats.

Fannie Lou Hamer

Today, there is no greater injustice than that suffered by the 4,000 babies, 1,400 of them black, who die on any given day at the hands of abortionists. Friday, we will stand witness in front of the White House and testify to President Obama that while he is living his dreams, those babies will be dying horrible deaths because of the policies he supports. I see the pride on African American faces everywhere, pride in the tremendous breakthrough President Obama represents," added Dr. King. "But I also can close my eyes and see the millions upon millions of young black, white, red, and yellow faces who never had the chance to live, overcome, or witness history.

Scholarship that is indifferent to human suffering is immoral.

My tendency to idealize Western civilization arises from my nationalistic desire to use the West in order to reform China. But this has led me to overlook the flaws of Western culture.

Approaches to death and dying reveal much of the attitude of society as a whole to the individuals who compose it. The development of ideas of what constitutes a good death can even be traced to prehistory.

Cicely Saunders

I am an advocate for awareness, the truth, and a person's right to know. I believe that in the absence of the truth, all of us stand helpless to defend ourselves, our families and our health, which is the greatest gift we have.

Erin Brockovich

I want you to just let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good. … Our goal is a Christian nation. We have a Biblical duty, we are called by God, to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism.

It's easy to do anything in victory. It's in defeat that a man reveals himself.

Bob Moses (activist)

He was not ahead of his time. No man is ahead of his time. Every man is within his star, each in his time. Each man must respond to the call of God in his lifetime and not in somebody else's lifetime.

Benjamin E. Mays

As I tried to understand my desire to do good and where it came from, I decided I did it because Jesus commanded that we care for the needy. But after I lost the faith, I remembered that I had always tried to do good and help others, and that the desire to act selflessly for others transcends religion. Though I didn't have the words for it at the time, I was beginning to cultivate my Humanistic worldview.

At first blush, it seems that the young people who were shot down in the parking lot at the base of Blanket Hill gave up their lives for a dream that died with them.

William Kunstler

Many teenagers spend more time in front of the television than they do in the classroom, and their sexual behavior in part reflects what they have learned from this thoroughly unreliable teacher. Nowhere is it more apparent than on television that America suffers from sexual schizophrenia: We exploit sex, and at the same time we try to repress it.

Care for us and accept us - we are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else - don't be afraid of us - we are all the same!

We Christians forget (if we ever learned) that attempts to redress real or imagined injustice by violent means are merely another exercise in denial — denial of God and her nonviolence towards us, denial of love of neighbor, denial of laws essential to our being.

Philip Berrigan