Activist Quotes

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Malcolm X

Malala Yousafzai

Greta Thunberg

Yoko Ono

Thomas Paine

Henning Mankell

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.

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.

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.

Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born,

Malala Yousafzai

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

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.

Kansas had better stop raising corn and begin raising hell.

Mary Elizabeth Lease

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

Charlotte Bunch

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

The working class owes all honor and respect to the first men who planted the standard of labor solidarity on the hostile frontier of unorganized industry.

Peace comes from being able to contribute the best that we have, and all that we are, toward creating a world that supports everyone.
But it is also securing the space for others to contribute the best that they have and all that they are.

It is not the religious beliefs, whether right or wrong, which are opposed to culture and material progress, but that belief which prohibits learning of sciences, earning one's livelihood and the ways of culture. I do not believe that there is any religion in the world which opposes these things. I would rather say that it is non-believing which inevitably leads to disorder and distortion of culture as in the case of the Nihilists.

Jamal-al-Din Afghani

History teaches us that everything is in flux. Our fight to redress the material crimes of 1948 is scarcely begun, and adversity has taught us patience. As for the Israeli state and its Spartan culture of permanent war, it is all too vulnerable to time, fatigue and demographics: In the end, it is always a question of our children and those who come after us.

Mahmoud al-Zahar

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

I like women a lot and I champion them. I tell people when they are beautiful, I tell other actresses when I think their work is amazing... So I think women feel relatively comfortable in my presence. Also, because I'm not perfect, you know? I've got flabby thighs, I'm aging and I'm 5ft 3in. I talk about my failing in contemporary society in terms of gyms or food or whatever. I think there's a polite appreciation that I'm honest.

Gillian Anderson

We shall never become an immense power in the world until we concentrate all our money and editorial forces upon one great national daily newspaper, so we can sauce back our opponents every day in the year; once a month or once a week is not enough.

Susan B. Anthony

Why do they take the taxes and accept my manual labor for nine years? Why do they accept my taxes but cannot accept the fact that I have human rights?

Elvira Arellano

When we work towards the welfare of all the means we use have to be based on Truth, Non-violence and Selflessness in conformity with Awakening of All.

A. T. Ariyaratne

Other people have called me a "human rights" activist. I don't mind the label, but I don't think I'd go so far. It puts me on par with other extraordinary activists. I'm just an average guy with a bigger mouth than average.

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"!

"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 won't find solutions to rural India's health issues in modern facilities that are far removed. Effective strategies will emerge only when you work with the people.

I know there are tigers in the mountain, but I still go to the mountain.

Jihad should be waged in places where there is war. Bombings in places where there is no war is not a good thing.

Abu Bakar Bashir

While a man is stringing a harp, he tries the strings, not for music, but for construction. When it is finished it shall be played for melodies. God is fashioning the human heart for future joy. He only sounds a string here and there to see how far His work has progressed.

Henry Ward Beecher