Harvey Milk Quotes

Never take an elevator in city hall.

All over the country, they're reading about me, and the story doesn't center on me being gay. It's just about a gay person who is doing his job.

Some people call me the unofficial mayor of Castro Street.

I fully realize that a person who stands for what I stand for, an activist, a gay activist, becomes the target or the potential target for a person who is insecure, terrified, afraid, or very disturbed with themselves.

If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.

Gay brothers and sisters ... You must come out. Come out to your relatives ... come out to your friends ... Come out to your neighbors ... to your fellow workers ... to the people who work where you eat and shop ... break down the myths, destroy the lies and distortions. For your sake. For their sake. For the sake of the youngsters who are becoming scared ...

Hope is never silent.

The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods.

Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, I'm here, pay attention to me

It takes no compromise to give people their rights ... it takes no money to respect the individual. It takes no political deal to give people freedom. It takes no survey to remove repression.

I like to sit in the window and watch the cute boys walk by.

Hope will never be silent.

Burst down those closet doors once and for all, and stand up and start to fight.

Every gay person must come out ... Once they realize we are indeed their children, we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all.

I was born of heterosexual parents. I was taught by heterosexual teachers in a fiercely heterosexual society. Television ads and newspaper ads - fiercely heterosexual. A society that puts down homosexuality. And why am I a homosexual if I'm affected by role models? I should have been a heterosexual. And no offense meant, but if teachers are going to affect you as role models, there'd be a lot of nuns running around the streets today.

All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.

Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and all. And once you do, you will feel so much better

Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property ... worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life.

We will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets.

I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. And you ... And you ... And you ... Gotta give em hope.

I have tasted freedom. I will not give up that which I have tasted.

I finally reached the point where I knew I had to become involved or shut up.

If you are not personally free to be yourself in that most important of all human activities ... the expression of love ... then life itself loses its meaning.

Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.

If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods.

Out of the bars and into the streets!

If it were true that children mimicked their teachers, you'd sure have a helluva lot more nuns running around.

All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.

Let's make no mistake about this: The American Dream starts with the neighborhoods. If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods. And to do that, we must understand that the quality of life is more important than the standard of living. To sit on the front steps--whether it's a veranda in a small town or a concrete stoop in a big city--and to talk to our neighborhoods is infinitely more important than to huddle on the living-room lounger and watch a make-believe world in not-quite living color.

...

And I hardly need to tell you that in the 19- or 24-inch view of the world, cleanliness has long since eclipsed godliness. Soon we'll all smell, look, and actually be laboratory clean, as sterile on the inside as on the out. The perfect consumer, surrounded by the latest appliances. The perfect audience, with a ringside seat to almost any event in the world, without smell, without taste, without feel--alone and unhappy in the vast wasteland of our living rooms. I think that what we actually need, of course, is a little more dirt on the seat of our pants as we sit on the front stoop and talk to our neighbors once again, enjoying the type of summer day where the smell of garlic travels slightly faster than the speed of sound.

I know you can't live on hope alone; but without hope, life is not worth living. So you, and you and you: you got to give them hope; you got to give them hope.

I ask for the movement to continue, for the movement to grow, because last week I got a phone call from Altoona, Pennsylvania, and my election gave somebody else, one more person, hope. And
after all, that's what this is all about. It's not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power - it's about giving those young people out there in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias, hope.
You gotta give them hope.

Coming out is the most political thing you can do.