"History is not an accident, it is a choice." — Bayard Rustin"The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity." — William Faulkner.
There are no finish lines on humanity's long journey towards racial, social, and economic justice — only milestones achieved (or later driven back to). For myself personally, these quotations from contemporaries and those who came before me have severed as my signposts, guidance, and messages of encouragement.
Annonymous
"Where the broom don't sweep, the dirt don't move."
"If you don't like the history they're teaching you in school, go out an make some of your own"
"Your car is German. Your vodka is Russian. Your pizza is Italian. Your kebab is Turkish. Your democracy is Greek. Your coffee is Brazilian. Your movies are American. Your tea is Tamil. Your shirt is Indian. Your oil is Saudi Arabian. Your electronics are Chinese. Your numbers Arabic, your letters Latin. And you complain that your neighbor is an immigrant?"
"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight — it's the size of the fight in the dog."
Abigail Adams
"If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice or representation.""Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a Rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation."
"I've always felt that a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic."
Samuel Adams
"If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.""It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
Isaac Asimov
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Marcus Aurelius?
You can also commit injustice by doing nothing.
Ella Baker, NAACP/SNCC
"Give light, and people will find the way..."We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes. Until the killing of black men, black mothers" sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother's sons, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens."
"People cannot be free until there is enough work in this land to give everybody a job".
"We are not in the final stages of the freedom struggle. We are really just beginning."
"You have to reach out to your neighbors who don't speak to you and you have to reach out to your friends who think they are making it good."
"Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all mankind."
James Baldwin
"I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.""Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced."
Rev. William Barber"
"A king is only a king if we bow down."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Louis D. Brandeis
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
Major General Smedley Butler, U.S. Marine Corps.
"I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this countryms most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to MajorGeneral. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
"I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys [today Citi Bank] to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 19091912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." — 1935
Cesar Chavez
"To make a great dream come true, the first requirement is a great capacity to dream; the second is persistence.""What is at stake is human dignity. If a man is not accorded respect he cannot respect himself and if he does not respect himself, he cannot demand it."
"Because we have suffered, and we are not afraid to suffer in order to survive, we are ready to give up everything — even our lives — in our struggle for justice."
"Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures."
"We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure."
"We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline."
"When we are really honest with ourselves we must admit that our lives are all that really belong to us. So, it how we use our lives that determines what kind of men we are. It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life."
"Money is not going to organize the disadvantaged, the powerless, or the poor. We need other weapons. Thatms why the War on Poverty is such a miserable failure. You put out a big pot of money and all you do is fight over it. Then you run out of money and you run out of troops."
"Itms amazing how people can get so excited about a rocket to the moon and not give a damn about smog, oil leaks, the devastation of the environment with pesticides, hunger, disease. When the poor share some of the power that the affluent now monopolize, we will give a damn." "True wealth is not measured in money or status or power. It is measured in the legacy we leave behind for those we love and those we inspire."
Septima Poinsette Clark
"We must teach our children about their history and culture, so they can be proud of who they are and where they come from.""Education should not serve to perpetuate inequality, but rather to dismantle it."
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, and education is a means to combat it."
"Every child has a right to a quality education, regardless of their background or circumstances."
"The greatest evil in our country today is...ignorance...We need to be taught to study rather than to believe."
"The fight for justice is a long journey, and we must continually renew our ommitment to the struggle."
Angela Davis
"You have to act as if it were possible to radically transform the world. And you have to do it all the time."
Benjamin Disraeli
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," (& Mark Twain)
Fredrick Douglas
"Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.""It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men."
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
"At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed."
"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
"To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker."
"I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence."
W.E.B. DuBois
"There can be no perfect democracy curtailed by color, race, or poverty. But with all we accomplish all, even Peace.""The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.'
"Perhaps the most extraordinary characteristic of current America is the attempt to reduce life to buying and selling. Life is not love unless love is sex and bought and sold. Life is not knowledge save knowledge of technique, of science for destruction. Life is not beauty except beauty for sale. Life is not art unless its price is high and it is sold for profit. All life is production for profit, and for what is profit but for buying and selling again?"
"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."
"Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself."
Albert Einstein
"The Revolution introduced me to art, and in turn, art introduced me to the Revolution!""Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving,"
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."
"We all know that light travels faster than sound. That's why certain people ppear bright until you hear them speak."
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value"
"Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
"You never fail until you stop trying.
"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
Benjamin Franklin
"Security without liberty is called prison." "Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.""It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority."
"A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle."
William Faulkner
Some things you must always be unable to bear. Some things you must never stop refusing to bear. Injustice and outrage and dishonor and shame. No matter how young you are or how old you have got. Not for kudos and not for cash: your picture in the paper nor money in the bank either. Just refuse to bear them.""The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before you were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity." [Posted here in context of MAGA-regime attacks on, and white-washing of, American history.]
Judy Garland
"When you get to know a lot of people, you make a great discovery. You find that no one group has a monopoly on looks, brains, goodness or anything else. It takes all the people — black and white, Catholic, Jewish and Protestant, recent immigrants and Mayflower descendants — to make up America.'
Gandhi
"Be the change that you wish to see in the world.'"Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.'"There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts.
"A 'No' uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a 'Yes' merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble."
"Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it — always."
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed."
"Poverty is the worst form of violence."
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
"Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.""I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks."
Emma Goldman
"The most violent element in society is ignorance.""When we can't dream any longer we die."
"The most unpardonable sin in society is independence of thought."
"The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul."
"To-day is the parent of to-morrow. The present casts its shadow far into the future."
"People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take."
Fannie Lou Hamer
"When I liberate myself, I liberate others. If you don't speak out ain't nobody going to speak out for you.""I am sick and tired of being sick and tired."
"Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, Imll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. Imm not backing off."
"Black people know what white people mean when they say 'law and order'.
"Righteousness exalts a nation. Hate just makes people miserable."
"You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap."
"Sometimes it seem like to tell the truth today is to run the risk of being killed. But if I fall, Imll fall five feet four inches forward in the fight for freedom. I'm not backing off.
Judge William Hastie
Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming, rather than >being. It can easily be lost, but never is fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle.
Dorothy Height
"If the time is not ripe, we have to ripen the time."
Joe Hill
"Don't mourn, organize!"Joe Hill, IWW
Abbie Hoffman
"Democracy is not something you believe in or a place to hang your hat, but it's something you do. You participate. If you stop doing it, democracy crumbles.
Dolores Huerta
"We can't let people drive wedges between us because there ms only one human race.""Si, se puede!" ("yes, it is possible")
"We are one human race. The only way we have survived on planet Earth is because we have been taking care of each other."
"If people don't vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it's not going to change anything if you don't vote."
"The thing about nonviolence is that it spreads. When you get people to participate in nonviolent action boycott, or a picket line from that action."
"The great social justice changes in our country have happened when people came together, organized, and took direct action. It is this right that sustains and nurtures our democracy today. The civil rights movement, the labor movement, the womenms movement, and the equality movement for our LGBT brothers and sisters are all manifestations of these rights."
"I think the importance of doing activist work is to engage people and give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow. Hope that change is possible and that they can be a part of that transformation."
Thomas Jefferson
"Governments are instituted among Men [and women], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"."We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.'
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [and women] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
"Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
"Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor. Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains."
Mother Jones (the rabble-rousing organizer not the magazine).
"I asked a man in prison once how he happened to be there and he said he had stolen a pair of shoes. I told him if he had stolen a railroad he would be a United States Senator."
"God almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies."
Barbara Jordan
"My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.""What the people want is simple, they want an America as good as its promise."
"We as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good. More is required of public officials than slogans and handshakes and press releases. More is required. We must hold ourselves strictly accountable. We must provide the people with a vision of the future."
Helen Keller
"The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, for the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters, and for the exploiters of labor."
Diane Nash, SNCC
"Oppression always requires the participation of the oppressed and the role of the oppressed is to withdraw cooperation.""Freedom, by definition, is people realizing that they are their own leaders."
"There is a source of power in each of us that we don't realize until we take responsibility.
Malcolm X
"Stumbling is not falling.""I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation."
"There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance next time.'
"I am not a racist. I am against every form of racism and segregation, every form of discrimination. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color."
"The common goal of 22 million Afro-Americans is respect as human beings, the God-given right to be a human being. Our common goal is to obtain the human rights that America has been denying us. We can never get civil rights in America until our human rights are first restored. We will never be recognized as citizens there until we are first recognized as humans."
"You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has freedom."
"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those that do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the systems of exploitation.'
"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it."
"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing." "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."
"A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything,"
Martin Luther King MLK
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."The time is always right to do what is right."
"We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice ~ not in love with publicity but in love with humanity."
"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."
"He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."
"When you can't do what you want, do what you can."
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
"Life ms most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'"
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
"Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred."
"Cowardice asks the question, Is it safe? Expediency asks the question, Is it politic? Vanity asks the question, Is it popular? But conscience asks the question, Is it right?" We must accept finite disappointment but never lose infinite hope."
"Nobody can do everything, but if everyone does something, everything will get done."
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."
"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
"We are here also because of our love for democracy, because of our deep-seated belief that democracy transformed from thin paper to thick action is the greatest form of government on earth." (From MLK's irst speech on the first day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 1955).
"The dispossessed of this nation — the poor, both white and Negro — live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against that injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty"
"God never intended for one group of people to live in superfluous, inordinate wealth, while others live in abject, deadening poverty."
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
"Nobody can do everything, but if everyone does something everything will get done."
"Those who love peace must learn to organize as well as those who love war."
"The problem of racism, the problem of economic exploitation, and the problem of war are all tied together. These are the triple evils that are interrelated."
"Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice, and when they fail in this purpose, they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.'
"Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.'
"No person has the right to rain on your dreams."
"There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it tells him it is right.'
"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall"
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."
"There is a dire need today for a liberalism which is truly liberal. What we are witnessing today in so many northern communities is a sort of quasi-liberalism which is based on the principle of looking sympathetically at all sides. It is a liberalism so bent on seeing all sides, that it fails to become committed to either side. It is a liberalism that is so objectively analytical that it is not subjectively committed. It is a liberalism which is neither hot nor cold, but lukewarm."
"A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just. It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: This is not just. The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
"Why are there forty million poor people in America? When you begin to ask that question, you are raising a question about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy. And I'm simply saying that more and more, we've got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life's marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. And you see, my friends, when you deal with this you begin to ask the question, Who owns the oil? You begin to ask the question, Who owns the iron ore? You begin to ask the question, Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that's two-thirds water? "
It may be true that morality cannot be legislated but behaviour can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can restrain him from lynching me; and I think that is pretty important. And so, while the law may not change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men if it is vigorously enforced, and through changes in habits, pretty soon attitudinal changes will take place and even the heart may be changed in the process.
"So long as we place our selfish economic gains first we will never have peace. So long as the nations of the world are contesting to see which can be the most impeaialistic we will nver have peace. So long as America places 'white supremacy' first we will never have peace. Indeed the deep rumbling of discontent in our world today on the part of the masses is acturlly a revolt against the imperialism, economic exploitation, and colonialism that has been perpetuated by western civilization for all these many years. All of these injustices must be eliminated, if we are to have peace.
Emma Lazarus
"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
the wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."
Ursula K. Le Guin:
"Injustice makes the rules, and courage breaks them.
John Lewis
"Get in good trouble, necessary trouble, and help redeem the soul of America.""A democracy cannot thrive where power remains unchecked and justice is reserved for a select few. Ignoring these cries and failing to respond to this movement is simply not an option — for peace cannot exist where justice is not served."
Abraham Lincoln
"The best way to predict your future is to create it.I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I have.
"Democracy is a government of the people, by the people, for the people."
[As opposed to "government of the CEOs, by the lobbyists, for the billionaires" later addition]"The struggle of today is not altogether for today."
"I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having lived in it."
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion."
If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it.
"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves"
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."
"Elections belong to the people. It's their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters."
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry"
"As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal." We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy."
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
"From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide."
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy."
"The people — the people — are the rightful masters of both congresses, and courts — not to overthrow the constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it."
"The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. ... As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disentrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."
"The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves — in their separate, and individual capacities."
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts — and beer.
Audre Lorde
"You do not have to be me in order for us to fight alongside each other. I donot have to be you to recognize that our wars are the same.
"Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare."
Within each one of us there is some piece of humanness that knows we are not being served by the machine which orchestrates crisis after crisis and is grinding all our futures into dust.
There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not lead single-issue lives. Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone. What we must do is commit ourselves to some future that can include each other and to work toward that future with the particular strengths of our individual identities.
"It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept and celebrate those differences."
"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own."
"In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower."
"You do not have to be me in order for us to fight alongside each other. I do not have to be you to recognize that our wars are the same."
"The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The Black mother within each of us — the poet — whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free."
Nelson Mandela
"I never lose. Either I win or I learn.""It always seems impossible until it's done".
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.
"Success is Not Final, Failure is Not Fatal: it is the Courage to Continue that Counts."
"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others"
It is not our diversity which divides us; it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. There is only one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not.
"When You Feel Like Quitting, Remember Why You Started"
"Resentment is like drinking poison and then hoping it will kill your enemies.'
"I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.'
"Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great, you can be that generation.'
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.
I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.
Thurgood Marshall
Where you see wrong or inequality or injustice, speak out, because this is your country. This is your democracy. Make it. Protect it. Pass it on.
Margaret Mead
Chief among our gains must be reckoned this possibility of choice, the recognition of many possible ways of life, where other civilizations have recognized only one.Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
[With the unstated, but inherently understood caveat that the small group evenually has to achive widespread support.]
Chuck McDew, SNCC
"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there, so first either get a map or draw one of your own.""Militancy and wisdom must not become enemies. Spontaneous expressions of despair are no substitute for disciplined political movements for social justice. The psychological dynamic which manifests itself in apathy or sporadic outbursts of rage are both the products of oppression."
Edward R. Murrow.
"No one man can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices."
Barack Obama
What makes someone American isn't just blood or birth, but allegiance to our founding principles and faith in the idea that anyone from anywhere can write the next chapter of our story.
George Orwell
"Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future."
Thomas Paine
"These are the times that try our souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriots will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but those that stand by it now, deserve the love and thanks of man and woman." Valley Forge, 1776."A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody."
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."
When all other rights are taken away, the right of rebellion is made perfect."
"Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.
"When extraordinary power and extraordinary pay are allotted to any individual in a government, he becomes the center, round which every kind of corruption generates and forms.
Rosa Parks
"People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in."
A. Philip Randolph
"Justice is never given; it is exacted and the struggle must be continuous for freedom is never a final fact, but a continuing evolving process to higher and higher levels of human, social, economic, political and religious relationship."Since almost all Negroes are workers, live on wages, and suffer from the high cost of food, clothing and shelter, it is obvious that the Republican and Democratic Parties are opposed to their interests.
Adrienne Rich
"Like so many others, I've watched the dismantling of our public education, the steep rise in our incarceration rates, the demonization of our young black men, the accusations against our teenage mothers, the selling of health care — public and private — to the highest bidders, the export of subsistence-level jobs in the United States to even lower-wage countries, the use of below-minimum-wage prison labor to break strikes and raise profits, the scapegoating of immigrants, the denial of dignity and minimal security to our working and poor people."
Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR)
"Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough."
"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists."
"Among American citizens, there should be no forgotten men and no forgotten races."
"Men and nature must work hand in hand. The throwing out of balance of the resources of nature throws out of balance also the lives of men."
"The Four Freedoms: "We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear."
"I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust." State of the Union speech January 1941. p>"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."
"Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists." (FDR)
"I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made."
"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power."
"Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose."
"We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics."
We look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. The third is freedom from want. The fourth is freedom from fear.
Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.
"The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the goverment."
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson —
"Liberty requires opportunity to make a living — a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.
"In these days of difficulty, we Americans must and shall choose the path of social justice...the path of faith, the path of hope and the path of love toward our fellow man."
"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization."
Eleanor Roosevelt
"Person after person has said to me in these last few days that this new world we face terrifies them. I can understand how that feeling would arise unless one believes that men are capable of greatness beyond their past achievements ... The time now calls for humankind as a whole to rise to great heights."True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded."
"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.
A respect for the rights of other people to determine their forms of government will not weaken our democracy. It will inevitably strengthen it."
"One of the first things we must get rid of is the idea that democracy is tantamount to capitalism."
"If silence seems to give approval, then remaining silent is cowardly."
"A selfish victory is always destined to be an ultimate defeat."
"It seems trite to say to the Negro, you must have patience, when he has had patience so long; you must not expect miracles overnight, when he can look back to the years of slavery and say — how many nights! He has waited for justice."
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
"A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until itms in hot water."
"What has happened to us in this country? If we study our own history, we find that we have always been ready to receive the unfortunate from other countries, and though this may seem a generous gesture on our part, we have profited a thousand fold by what they have brought us."
"A sane people, living in an atmosphere of fearlessness, does not suddenly become hysterical at the threat of invasion, even from more credible sources, let alone by the Martians from another planet, but we have allowed ourselves to be fed on propaganda which has created a fear complex. For the past few years, nearly all of our organizations and many individuals have said something about the necessity for fighting dangerous and subversive elements in our midst." (Following the hysteria caused by the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast in 1938)
"It is not only physical courage which we need, the kind of physical courage which in the face of danger can at least control the outward evidences of fear. It is moral courage as well, the courage which can make up its mind whether it thinks something is right or wrong, make a material or personal sacrifice if necessary, and take the consequences which may come."
"I believe that democracy is based on the ability to make democracy serve the good of the majority of the people. If it canmt do that, then it should not survive."
"Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just a step at time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down.
Bayard Rustin
"Most Americans are more interested in order than in law, more interested in law than in justice"
"History is not an accident, it is a choice."
Bernie Sanders
"From one end of our country to the other — in red states, blue states, purple states — working families, the younger generation, seniors, and the poor are desperately looking for a new and bold vision for Americams future.
The Status Quo is Not Working and Cannot Continue to be Defended."
Mario Savio
"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even tacitly take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."
Adam Smith
"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."
Zadie Smith
"Progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated and reimagined if it is to survive,
Sophocles (440BC)
"Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad." An observation on the self-destructive hubris of autocrats and dictators.
SNCC
"We believed that ideas should come from action, not from ideology. We had a stern insistence that our conceptualization, our thinking, our framework, should grow from engagement with the people that we were working with rather than any doctrine or any ready-made philosophy. [Dietrich Bonhoeffer] believed that freedom is expressed in the willingness to assume responsibility and he believed that freedom without responsible action is not freedom." — Mary King re SNCC
"People are remembered more by what they do than by what they say." — James Forman, SNCC
John Steinbeck
"It isn't that the evil thing wins — it never will — but that it doesn't die."
"I know now why confusion in government is not only tolerated but encouraged. I have learned. A confused people can make no clear demands."
I.F. Stone
"All governments are run by liars and nothing they say should be believed.
"When war comes, reason is regarded as treason."
"Facts are subversive"
"The only social justice movements worth fighting for are the struggles for justice where you lose, you lose, you lose — until you win."
"The only thing God didn't do to Job was give him a computer."
"There must be renewed recognition that societies are kept stable and healthy by reform, not by thought police; this means there must be free play for so-called subversive ideas — every idea subverts the old to make way for the new. To shut off subversion is to shut off peaceful progress and to invite revolution and war."
Alexis De Tocqueville, 1835
"The surface of American society is covered with a layer of democratic paint, but from time to time one can see the old aristocratic colors breaking through."
Henry David Thoreau
It is not to be forgotten, that while the law holds fast the thief and murderer, it lets itself go loose."
"The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lovers of law and order, who observe the law when the government breaks it."
The newspapers are the ruling power. What Congress does is an after-clap."
"I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest."
"The rich man is always sold to the institution which makes him rich."
"For it matters not how small the beginning may seem to be: what is once well done is done forever."
"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible."
"How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it."
"All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.
Tolstoy
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time."
Sun Tzu
"An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes."
Harriet Tubman
"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."
Mark Twain
"When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me."
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress."
"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
"Our lives, our liberty, and our property are never in greater danger than when Congress is in session."
"A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch."
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics," (& Benjamin Disraeli)
"We have the best government that money can buy."
"Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about."
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Voltaire
"It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere."
"The art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all it possibly can pay for the benefit of the other third.
"He who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
Alice Walker
"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any."
Elizabeth Warren
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You build a factory out there — good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers that the rest of us paid to educate. ... Part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
George Washington
"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respected Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges..."
Ida B. Wells
The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them."
Elie Wiesel
"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
Andrew Young
"There can be no democracy without truth. There can be no truth without controversy. There can be no change without freedom. Without freedom there can be no progress."
Howard Zinn
"Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it."
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