Activist Quotes

Autonomy is the capacity to act on principles that are one's own and one will exercise this capacity by means of a process of rational reflection on these principles. Autonomy is thought to be necessary for attributing political responsibility.

We would be more American on the day we permitted same-sex marriage than we were on the day before.

David Blankenhorn

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.

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

Wangari Maathai

The Food and Drug Administration cannot spend the money to supervise these "honest" manufacturers too carefully.

I live proudly in a body of my own design. I defend my right to be complex

Leslie Feinberg

The first time you meet Winston you see all his faults and the rest of your life you spend in discovering his virtues.

Of Winston Churchill

Lady Constance Bulwer-Lytton

The genuine Anarchist looks with sheer horror upon every destruction, every mutilation of a human being, physical or moral. He loathes wars, executions and imprisonments, the grinding down of the worker's whole nature in a dreary round of toil, the sexual and economic slavery of women, the oppression of children, the crippling and poisoning of human nature by the preventable cruelty and injustice of man to man in every shape and form.

Charlotte Wilson

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

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.

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.

Many sacrifices are going to be exacted before we finally defeat De Klerk and his government. More and more atrocities will be committed by the erstwhile admirers of Hider and dictators of Latin America. But for us, there is no other choice but to engage them in a struggle, not just once but more than a million times.

Precisely because white denial has long trumped claims of racism, people of color tend to underreport their experiences with racial bias rather than exaggerate them.

Scholarship that is indifferent to human suffering is immoral.

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."

On one level the sixties revolt was an impressive illustration of Lenin's remark that the capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him with.

All you have to do is ask yourselves, who controls the government? And who are the victims of that control?

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?

United Nations get name for us
Dem go call us "Underdeveloped Nations."
We must be "underdeveloped" to dey
stay 10-10 in one room
First and second day dem go call us
"Third World."

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

Marriages might be made in Heaven, but too often they are consummated right here on earth.

Alice Dunbar Nelson

We are here to deliver a message to America: We are here and we will never be silent again.

David Silverman

[About PETA] When we first started, we were able to take our undercover video to 60 Minutes or 20/20, and they would fight over it and do these thought-provoking exposés. Now that society has become less interested in these programs and more interested in sensationalism and the tabloids, we have to reinvent ourselves to keep our issues on the front burner; we have had to do a lot of theatrical things. … Much of what we do is geared toward kids, who have a great sense of justice. This is the first generation in which kids have grown up with this issue. Twenty-five years ago, parents were petrified when their kids went vegetarian—some still are.