20th-century Activist Quotes

And it's one, two, three what are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn, next stop is Vietnam!
And it's five, six, seven, open up the pearly gates,
There ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! – we're all going to die.

Country Joe McDonald

It's not one of those pretty biblical mandates like love your neighbor as yourself. But hell is not a pretty doctrine, either. There are lots of unpretty doctrines in the Bible. Yet if God wrote the Bible, I have to abide by it whether I like it or not.

With all that this country has given me, I felt it wasn't right for me to be enjoying life in Indian Hill when Marines were fighting and dying in Iraq.

Women are not little children. Women are not weak, not victims. Pleasure and danger go together, of course they do. We want the pleasure, and we can cope with danger.

Nadine Strossen

For all those calling me a traitor, I am proud of what I did and I'm glad I succeeded in what I did.

Mordechai Vanunu

People have to be made to understand that they cannot look for salvation anywhere but to themselves.

"Now he took the music of like Mandrill, like "Fencewalk", certain disco records that had funky percussion breaks like The Incredible Bongo Band when they came out with "Apache" and he just kept that beat going. It might be that certain part of the record that everybody waits for—they just let their inner self go and get wild. The next thing you know the singer comes back in and you'd be mad."

Afrika Bambaataa

You want me to defend the riches reaped from the super-exploitation of the darker races of mankind by a few white, rich, super-monopolists who control the most vast empire that has ever existed in man's one million years of History—all in the name of "Freedom"!

Modi told me the last straw for him with regard to NDTV was when one of their correspondents Vijay Trivedi, accompanied him in a helicopter for an interview. When he started asking the same old insulting questions, Modi simply kept quiet and refused to respond any further. Piqued at being ignored, Trivedi spread the canard that Modi nearly threw him out of the helicopter mid-air because he had asked "tough questions". Modi says on that day he decided never to give legitimacy to NDTV by giving them an interview or responding to any questions from them. Vijay Trivedi treats this incident as a badge of honour and has boasted about it on numerous occasions—in writing.

Yesterday, on the 17th of May, we Norwegians celebrated our constitution day to mark the signing of Norway's constitution in 1814. Maybe it is because we are a small country: In Norway this is an important day. All over Norway children have paraded in their best clothes to the music of thousands of marching bands, and countless speeches have been made to remind each others, as fellow Norwegians, that freedom should never be taken for granted.

Andreas Heldal-Lund

None of us can predict when the causes we support will capture the public imagination, and our once-lonely quests become popular crusades.

Paul Rogat Loeb

I never had a low self-esteem that would make me gay. At one point, though, the reverse happened. Being homosexual led me to have a loss of self-esteem when I first became aware of society's attitudes about homosexuality.

Fifteen years ago, a new chapter in this record opened, a spontaneous modern response to the condition of the Black minority. It began with a new kind of confrontation, a new style of leadership, and a new sense of urgency which have since then generated conflicts in many other areas of the national life. It was the beginning of what we now call The Movement.

Nowhere have women been more excluded from decision-making than in the military and foreign affairs. When it comes to the military and questions of nuclear disarmament, the gender gap becomes the gender gulf.

Watching people be shunned for their "otherness," every one of us begins to feel a little doubt about ourselves. You may want to deny that part of yourself that doesn't measure up, and not speak up. If we are serious about stopping AIDS, we have to end the silence and stigma around homosexuality—and in the process rethink our beliefs about what it means to be Black and male in America.

A precise and universally acceptable definition of the term "nonparametric" is not presently available.

The beginning of mindful eating is the realization that eating meat is not about the meat-eater; it is about the animals who are tormented and killed.

Simply disabling specific critical thinking skills is all that is necessary for the god virus [to take control of a person].

Every act we perform today must reflect the kind of relationships we are fighting to establish tomorrow.

David Dellinger

The gift of water, air, soap, and time allows us to heal and relieve our psyche and soul.

Night is a curious child, wandering
Between earth and sky, creeping
In windows and doors, daubing
The entire neighborhood
With purple paint.

Frank Marshall Davis

Y'all think it's a fire in here? You know there ain't no fire here. The kind of fire we have in here you can't put out with hoses and axes!

Fred Shuttlesworth

How valiant to deny the importance of money when it is had in abundance.

A people's art is the genesis of their freedom.

In fact if one person is unkind to an animal it is considered to be cruelty, but where a lot of people are unkind to a lot of animals, especially in the name of commerce, the cruelty is condoned and, once large sums of money are at stake, will be defended to the last by otherwise intelligent people.