20th-century Activist Quotes

Let's forget about the mythical Jesus and look for encouragement, solace and inspiration from real women... Two thousand years of patriarchal rule under the shadow of the cross ought to be enough to turn women toward the feminist 'salvation' of this world

Annie Laurie Gaylor

Zuma... stands in the way towards acquiring land for our people. That is why we will continue attacking him,... We are at war with whites who took our land and we now want it back. We want our land and we want our wealth; if you stand in our way we will crush you,...

The goal you set must be challenging. At the same time, it should be realistic and attainable, not impossible to reach. It should be challenging enough to make you stretch, but not so far that you break.

My job here today, our job, is to tell you the one thing you can count on. The one thing I can guarantee you can expect in life is that you will experience the thoroughly unexpected.

Only those who have known discrimination truly know its evil.

For far too many, pregnancy and birth is still something that happens to them rather than something they set out consciously and joyfully to do themselves

Sheila Kitzinger

I don't know a more irreligious attitude, one more utterly bankrupt of any human content, than one which permits childred to be destroyed.

Daniel Berrigan

On being a black woman:

You learn not to depend on anything.... You get into a habit of surviving.

The most exciting things going on in America today are movements to change America.

When the blood sugar is extremely low, the resulting irritability, nervous tension, and mental depression are such that a person can easily go berserk.... Add a few guns, gas jets, or razor blades, and you have the stuff murders and suicides are made of. The American diet has become dangerous in many more ways than one.

I think the problem is that we don't really understand what we are. In essence we're just a conceited, naked ape. But in our minds we're some sort of "divine legend", and we see ourselves as some sort of god. That we can walk around the earth deciding who will live and who will die and what will be destroyed and what will be saved. But the fact is we're just a bunch of primates out of control.

From top to bottom, the Communist Party can't get through a single day without telling lies.

Once a woman is known as a Lesbian, both she and society often feel that no other fact about her can rival the sexual identification.... No matter what a Lesbian achieves, her sexuality will remain her primary identity.

I am a colored woman or a Negro woman. Either one is OK. People dislike those words now. Today these use this term African American. It wouldn't occur to me to use that. I prefer to think of myself as an American, that's all!

The fact is, people work hard and rely on Food Stamps—or SNAP Program—to be able to feed their families. When they work full-time they still live in poverty. That's wrong in our nation. Students who are losing hope because of the difficulty of finding jobs in this tough economy. What we need to do, what is best for America, is to raise wages, create jobs, and then we will move forward. Hard-working people are trying their best, but those who hold on to capital are not sharing the wealth, and there is the problem.

Simone Campbell

On the role of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference:

We've been an umbrella in the 40 years of rain. We saw a fire burning in the souls of Black America. Water hoses couldn't wash it out, billy clubs couldn't beat it out, and jails couldn't lock it out.

Affirmative action really isn't about preferential treatment for blacks. It is about removing preferential treatment whites have received through history.

If you are asking the wrong question, it doesn't matter how good the answer is, you aren't going to get where you want to go.

Debates and parliamentary divisions are fruitless cosmetic exercises given the Tories' present Commons majority. And if we recognise this, we are either forced to accept Tory edicts as a fait accompli or we must look to new more militant forms of extra-Parliamentary opposition which involve mass popular participation and challenge the Government's right to rule.

We never know how our small activities will affect others through the invisible fabric of our connectedness. In this exquisitely connected world, it's never a question of 'critical mass.' It's always about critical connections.

Grace Lee Boggs

Will he listen to the voice of the people, this wonderful democrat, this absolute democrat who would not recognise democracy if it came up and puked in his face?

At the beginning I was confronted with a choice: move into art or revolutionary politics,... I took the path of art at the age of 18.... I could see this possibility of using the ideas of social change within art.

Never before in the history of the modern research university have entire departments and fields been devoted to purely ideological pursuits.

Meditation is a time to focus, train the mind, and bring it to stillness. It is not a time to rest and relax.

I was learning that, even for a woman with power, the path was dotted with land mines—she's so ambitious. she's so aggressive. she's ruthless. "Funny thing," I used to say, "a man has to be Joe McCarthy to be called ruthless... all a woman has to do is put you on hold."