Activist Quotes

America is the ultimate denial of the theory of man's continuous evolution.

But, if you think that by hanging us, you can stamp out the labor movement - the movement from which the downtrodden millions, the millions who toil and live in want and misery - the wage slaves - expect salvation - if this is your opinion, then hang us! Here you will tread upon a spark, but there, and there, and behind you and in front of you, and everywhere, flames will blaze up. It is a subterranean fire. You cannot put it out.

Nothing adds such dignity to character as the recognition of one's self- sovereignty.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

We want to be able to move freely and safely in our daily lives, free from the threat of random hate violence.themselves by turning the Constitution on its head and claim protection and permission to demonize and denigrate us. Hiding behind the perversion of the concepts of religious freedom and political speech, those people have carved out a special right to impose their bigotry and hatred for us.

Jeffrey Montgomery

When the environment is destroyed, plundered or mismanaged, we undermine our quality of life and that of future generations.

Wangari Maathai

Men, permitted to put words (and other things) in women's mouths, create scenes in which women desperately want to be bound, battered, tortured, humiliated, and killed.

Catharine MacKinnon

The majority of human conflict comes from people just feeling disrespected.

Paul K. Chappell

It is the cultivation of our own natures that is aimed at and not the imitation of the nature of another. The powers of our own mind are to be drawn out.

Hallie Quinn Brown

Sometimes in the midst of our own crises, the midst of our own life-problems, in the midst of the things that we find ourselves involved in, sometimes the power of our deliverance is in our own power and in our own possession. What you need, my brothers and sisters, is within you.

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

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

Why, since people must outnumber the minority that comprises the State and its oppressive forces, have they submitted so meekly to it?

On the Extinction Rebellion movement:

This is a movement devoted to disruptive, nonviolent disobedience in protest against ecological collapse.

Brothers and Sisters: Our ancient homeland is spotted today with an array of chemical dumps. Along the Niagara River, dioxin, a particularly deadly substance, threatens the remaining life there and in the waters which flow from there. Forestry departments spray the surviving forests with powerful insecticides to encourage tourism by people seeking a few days or weeks away from the cities where the air hangs heavy with sulphur and carbon oxides.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know.

Education is not a luxury in modern American society-it is essential for survival.

John M. Perkins

The problem, of course, lies with the realities concealed from us. This has always been the case. While the American public has slowly grappled with ongoing injustices visible within our own borders, it has long failed to discover and correct our government's abuses abroad. In the end, however, this is our government, and torture is being utilized in our names and supported by our tax dollars. We are responsible.

Jennifer Harbury

I am never lonely or discouraged or tired. When you live in constant communion with God, you cannot be lonely. When you perceive the working of God's wonderful plan and know that all good effort bears good fruit, you cannot be discouraged. When you have found inner peace, you are in contact with the source of universal energy and cannot be tired.

We [Republicans] want you to get rich and the Democrats don't. They want to tax you as if you were rich already.

Grover Norquist

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?

I want a change, and a radical change. I want a change from an acquisitive society to a functional society, from a society of go-getters to a society of go-givers.

Then the Sorcerer Science entered, and where e'er he waved his wand Fresh wonders and fresh mysteries rose on every hand.

Frances Power Cobbe

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

When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy. By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.

There are times when sympathy is as necessary as the air we breathe.

Rose Pastor Stokes