Rosa Parks Quotes

24 Sourced Quotes

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

Rosa Parks
I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.

Rosa Parks
I had felt for a long time, that if I was ever told to get up so a white person could sit, that I would refuse to do so.

Rosa Parks
What really matters is not whether we have problems, but how we go through them. We must keep going on to make it through whatever we are facing.

Rosa Parks
As long as people use tactics to oppress or restrict other people from being free, there is work to be done.

Rosa Parks
Nothing in the Golden Rule says that others will treat us as we have treated them. It only says that we must treat others in a way that we would want to be treated.

Rosa Parks
I have spent over half my life teaching love and brotherhood, and I feel that it is better to continue to try to teach or live equality and love than it would be to have hatred or prejudice. Everyone living together in peace and harmony and love - that's the goal that we seek, and I think that the more people there are who reach that state of mind, the better we will all be.

Rosa Parks
Most of all, I want to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free and wanted others to be free.

Rosa Parks
I have learned that in order to bring about change, you must not be afraid to take the first step. We will fail when we fail to try. Each and every one of us can make a difference.

Rosa Parks
I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet.

Rosa Parks
From my upbringing and the Bible I learned people should stand up for rights just as the children of Israel stood up to the Pharaoh.

Rosa Parks
I'd see the bus pass every day... But to me, that was a way of life; we had no choice but to accept what was the custom. The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.

Rosa Parks
God has always given me the strength to say what is right... I had the strength of God and my ancestors with me.

Rosa Parks
An opportunity was being given to me to do what I had asked of others.

Rosa Parks
Since I have always been a strong believer in God, I knew that He was with me, and only He could get me through that next step.

Rosa Parks
It takes more than one person to bring about peace — it takes all of us.

Rosa Parks
I did not get on the bus to get arrested. I got on the bus to go home.

Rosa Parks
We didn't have any civil rights. It was just a matter of survival, of existing from one day to the next. I remember going to sleep as a girl hearing the Klan ride at night and hearing a lynching and being afraid the house would burn down.

Rosa Parks
I would like to be known as a person who is concerned about freedom and equality and justice and prosperity for all people.

Rosa Parks
There is work to do; that is why I cannot stop or sit still. As long as a child needs help, as long as people are not free, there will be work to do. As long as an elderly person is attacked or in need of support, there is work to do. As long as we have bigotry and crime, we have work to do.

Rosa Parks
Many whites, even white Southerners told me that even though it may have seemed like the blacks were being freed (by my actions) they felt more free and at ease themselves. They thought that my action didn't just free blacks but them, too.

Rosa Parks
Every day before supper and before we went to services on Sundays my grandmother would read the Bible to me, and my grandfather would pray. We even had devotions before going to pick cotton in the fields. Prayer and the Bible, became a part of my everyday thoughts and beliefs. I learned to put my trust in God and to seek Him as my strength

Rosa Parks
I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.

Rosa Parks
I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time... there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn't hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.

Rosa Parks