Activist Quotes

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.

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

Evil societies always kill their consciences. We, who are the living, possess the past. Tomorrow is for our martyrs.

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

The tormented world cries out for internationhood, for co-existence in a harmony of diversity and mutual aid, for an end to self-segregation along secondary or superficial or downright imbecilic lines.

It's not the suffering of birth, death, love that the young reject, but the suffering of endless labor without dream, eating the spare bread in bitterness, being a slave without the security of a slave.

Meridel Le Sueur

Daring to dream what is deepest in our collective longings is what makes us most human and fully alive.

Dollars control people. Community currencies connect people.

It's not the union between my head and the electronic eye what makes me feel 'cyborg', it's the union between the software and my brain.

Tree sitting is a last resort. When you see someone sitting in a tree trying to protect it, you know that every level of our society has failed.

Julia Butterfly Hill

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.

The structure of our public morality crashed to earth. Above its grave a tombstone read, "Be tolerant--even of evil." Logically the next step would be to say to our commonwealth's criminals, "I disagree that it's all right to rob and murder, but naturally I respect your opinion." Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong.

Sarah Patton Boyle

I wonder that every colored person is not a misanthrope. Surely we have everything to make us hate mankind.

Charlotte Forten Grimké

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

[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.

A god that rewards credulity, a god that sanctions slavery, is unworthy of any kind of reverence or respect or devotion.

Matt Dillahunty

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.

We will join hands with you as women of this country.... We will kneel-in, we will sit-in until we can eat at any counter in the United States. We will walk until we are free, until we can walk to any school and take our children to any school in the United States. And we will sit-in, and we will kneel-in, and we will lie-in if necessary until every Negro in America can vote.

Daisy Bates (activist)

Your disrespect for me is apparent. You never respected me when I think about it and you never liked me. But I'm the parent and you're the child and it is not your job to love me the way I love you. My love for you is unconditional and no matter what you decide in your life I will love you. Doesn't mean I have to like it, but I will always love you. Love, Dad

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

Alice Dunbar Nelson

I am an advocate for awareness, the truth, and a person's right to know. I believe that in the absence of the truth, all of us stand helpless to defend ourselves, our families and our health, which is the greatest gift we have.

Erin Brockovich

Scientists who study brain-wave activity found that the longer one watches television, the more likely the brain will slip into "alpha" level: a slow, steady brain-wave pattern in which the mind is in its most receptive mode. It is noncoggnitive mode; i.e., information can be placed into the mind directly, without viewer participation.

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

David Silverman

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."

I believe that the hetero-normative, cis-normative, patriarchal, state-capitalist establishment is evil and must be destroyed.