Activism Quotes

To congratulate oneself on one's warm commitment to the environment, or to peace, or to the oppressed, and think no more is a profound moral fault. ~ Robert Conquest

You know, the guys there were so beautiful - they've lost that wounded look that fags all had 10 years ago. ~ Allen Ginsberg

I know we will create a society where there are no rich or poor, no people without work or beauty in their lives, where money itself will disappear, where we shall all be brothers and sisters, where every one will have enough. ~ Sylvia Pankhurst

McCain said the lower gas prices were sitting somewhere under the Gulf of Mexico. Obama said they were sitting in the bank accounts of companies like Exxon in the form of windfall profits to be taxed.

The formula was the same formula we see in every election: Republicans demonize government, sixties-style activism, and foreigners. Democrats demonize corporations, greed, and the right-wing rabble.

Both candidates were selling the public a storyline that had nothing to do with the truth. Gas prices were going up for reasons completely unconnected to the causes these candidates were talking about. What really happened was that Wall Street had opened a new table in its casino. The new gaming table was called commodity index investing. And when it became the hottest new game in town, America suddenly got a very painful lesson in the glorious possibilities of taxation without representation. Wall Street turned gas prices into a gaming table, and when they hit a hot streak we ended up making exorbitant involuntary payments for a commodity that one simply cannot live without. ~ Matt Taibbi

Static people love to compensate for their inability to change themselves by always trying to change the world. ~ Criss Jami

But if you sit around thinking what to do and end up not doing anything, why bother even thinking about it? You're better off going out on the town and having a good time. No, we have to think and act. That's what we're doing here, and that's what you have to do. ~ Elvia Alvarado

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

The vision of the ideal life that we've been taught in the West, which is gaining ever more purchase in China and India and elsewhere, feeds the system we need to undo. Go to school in order to get a degree in order to get a job in order to earn money so you can try to buy happiness because your life sucks, then retire and die: this is not meaningful living. ~ Rob Stewart

Activism" is not just what we see on the streets or on the Internet or in the news; sometimes, "activism" is the simple act of doggedly, determinedly surviving. ~ Barbara Gurr

I spent years," he told me, "studying the phenomenon of love."
"And I spend years studying the phenomenon of justice."
"At base, we spend years studying the same thing. ~ John Howard Griffin

I am political in spite of myself. I don't want to do the things I know I have to do, don't want to expose myself to disapproval, to retribution, don't want to go to meetings and demonstrations, distribute leaflets, don't want to ask people for signatures, for money.

I don't do these things as naturally as I breathe, the way I imagine real political people do, real communists, real socialists and feminists, real radicals, real troublemakers, real champions of the people. I do them because I know I've got to, because I am convinced it's the only way to make changes, to stop abuses. I do them almost as a last resort. I do them because I've been putting off doing them, avoiding them for months, because finally the necessity has gripped me and overcome my reluctance, my desire for the warmth of my room, for my books, for my people, for the reassurance of my homely habits. ~ Rosario Morales

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining ... . We demand this fraud be stopped. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Today, the European Union is busy transferring aid. If they can build infrastructure in Spain, roads, highways ... why do they refuse to use the same aid to build the same infrastructure in our countries? ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

We know that our world is corrupt and diseased but we're tired of being cynical and feeling helpless. What the hell, tilt at a windmill. ~ Cynthia Heimel

Having an open mind means learning too add more to our already existing beliefs about affirming dignity of those who are impoverished. ~ Terence Lester

Life actors never rehearse and need no script. A life actor uses only what is available, nothing more, nothing less. ~ Abbie Hoffman

Much of the oxygen we breathe comes from plants that died long ago. We can give thanks to these ancestors of our present-pay foliage, but we can't give back to them. We can, however, give forward. When we are unable to return the favor, we can pay it forward to someone or something else. Using this approach, we can see ourselves as part of a larger flow of giving and receiving throughout time. Receiving from the past, we can give to the future. When tackling issues such as climate change, the stance of gratitude is a refreshing alternative to guilt or fear as a source of motivation. ~ Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone

The duty of youth is to challenge corruption. ~ Kurt Cobain

Songs are dangerous, songs are subversive and can change your life. ~ Ronnie Gilbert

If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don't have the correct data. If you meet people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven't got a heart. ~ Paul Hawken

This is a revolution of the mind, get your mind together and get away from drugs. ~ James Brown

People will love him (Theodore Roosevelt) for the enemies he has made. ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin

I was never an activist, in the sense that I didn't really join a lot of organizations. I wasn't out in the streets. But what I did become was a writer. My activism was in writing. ~ Vivian Gornick

Activism has to remain active. That's the trademark slogan and that's the mantra, because if your foot doesn't stay on the pedal, the car will stop. ~ Bethann Hardison

I believe the era of the militant lady is back. ~ Sara Sheridan

We spend a lot of time talking about the unfairness of how our toxic musculine society forces us to be ashamed of embracing romance novels. Yet we buy our books in secret. It's time we practice what we preach. ~ Lyssa Kay Adams

What is a movement, after all, but the embodiment of aspirations turned into organized action by thousands and millions of people? ~ Rivera Sun

Art as activism. Like Banksy?"
"Man, Banksy's some white-ass bullshit. Sorry," he apologizes hastily, as though he might've offended my white-ass feelings.
[...]
"A'ight, so the dude flew out to Gaza to spray-paint a kitten on a house that'd been destroyed in an air strike. Like, the fuck? Talk about insensitive. Then our white savior has the audacity to call it art, to demand folks listen to his views on the atrocities of war, rather than the Palestinians who lived through it." He shakes his head, his hand tensing and untensing in mine. "Sorry. Shit drives me crazy sometimes. ~ Laura Steven

There is no one story that will replace the American dream, but stories
like this one - and there are thousands - can inform the myth or myths
we create for building and preserving the next culture. In order to do so,
however, we must recognize that we cannot live without myth, for it is an
essential part of our humanity. If we attempt to do so - given the fact that
something in us needs myth - we
will only create more myths that echo
the American dream - with themes of heroism, greed, entitlement, narcissism,
exploitation, exceptionalism, and myriad abuses of power. How we prepare for and navigate collapse will provide the raw materials for the myths we make and will live by in a postindustrial world. ~ Carolyn Baker

If CASA?s board, which includes such scientific experts as actress Jamie Lee Curtis, wants to tell the world that drinking is bad for you, that?s their prerogative? But there?s no excuse for political activism masquerading as science. ~ Bill Vaughan

For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights. ~ B.R. Ambedkar

Abbie Hoffman's inspiration was, in a sense, inadvertent. I wanted to do something to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Woodstock at the time, and it just happened that Abbie died the same year. Hoffman was always an inspiration to me, for his activism and execution of that activism, and any of his books will give you a guide and a map to creating almost anything, if you apply it to what it is you want to do. ~ Richard Cotovsky

One of the most unfortunate side effects of the urban activism of the '60s and '70s is the belief that development is wrong and that fighting it makes you an environmentalist. ~ Alex Steffen

We felt as though we had a responsibility to do something about it. So, we did. ~ Xiuhtezcatl Martinez

Or perhaps it's "activist," but on environmental and economic problems, without understanding that pressuring women to have too many children is the biggest cause of environmental distress, and economic courses should start with reproduction, not just production. ~ Gloria Steinem

It's not an effective protest if it's not pissing people off. ~ John Scalzi

Some people are happy to give feminists credit for things they fear - like abortion rights, contraception for teenagers, or gay liberation - but less willing to acknowledge that feminist activism brought about things they support, like better treatment for breast cancer or the opportunity for young girls to play soccer as well as lead cheers.

As Rosalyn Baxandall and Linda Gordon observe, "Although the word 'feminist' has become a pejorative term for to some American women, most women (and most men as well) support a feminist program: equal education, equal pay, child care, freedom from harassment and violence," and so on. ~ Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Resistence takes place on many planes. Occasionally it can be dramatic and public, but most of the decisions we are faced with are mundane and private. What to eat is a choice that we make several times a day, if we are lucky. The cumulative choices we make about food have profound implications. Food offers us many opportunities to resist the culture of mass marketing and commodification. Though consumer action can take many creative and powerful forms, we do not have to be reduced to the role of consumers selecting from seductive convenience items. We can merge appetite with activism and choose to involve ourselves in food as cocreators. (Page 27) ~ Sandor Ellix Katz

To acknowledge the existence of the bully and his accompanying risks is not the same as accepting him as a permanent feature of our world. I know that if we accept trauma and fear, it wins.

"Bullies don't just go away. Their legacies don't just disappear. The bully must be confronted intentionally, his impact named and addressed. Even so, it seems there's no clear consensus on how to deal with the bully on our blocks. Do we confront him? Match violence with violence? Do we ignore him, or try to kill him with kindness? I don't think there's a silver bullet to handling the bully, no one-size-fits-all strategy. But the right strategy has to be rooted in a context bigger than the immediate one, has to be rooted in more than aiming to end the presence of the bully himself. We must focus on the type of world we want to live in and devise a plan for getting there, as opposed to devising a strategy centered on opposition. ~ DeRay Mckesson

The thing most worth doing in this modern world [is to] create jobs that men can work at, and be proud of, and make money by their work. ~ Nevil Shute

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better. It's not. ~ Dr. Seuss

As a young man in South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, Gandhi developed satyagraha, a mode of political activism based upon moral persuasion, while mobilizing South Africa's small Indian minority against racial discrimination. ~ Pankaj Mishra

Photography can still be used to champion activism and change. I believe this, even while standing in the cool winds of postmodernism ... Postmodernism looked radical, but it wasn't. As a movement it was profoundly liberal and became a victim of itself. Precisely at this historical moment, when multicultural democracy is the order of the day, photography can be used as a powerful weapon toward instituting political and cultural change. I for one will continue to work toward this end. ~ Carrie Mae Weems

Usually the way I think someone is radicalized is through a personal experience. The thing about environmental activism is that we are all having a personal experience with our environment, whether we open our eyes or not. ~ Peter Sarsgaard

I think there's a little more attention to human needs than to property rights. But I don't think much of political activism. It's so shortsighted. Most people are interested in their own personal comfort. I've said that about environmentalists. I think they care about bike paths and places to park their Volvos, not the planet as an abstraction. ~ George Carlin

Finding ways to appreciate advances without embracing complacency is a delicate task. It involves being hopeful and motivated and keeping eyes on the prize ahead. Saying that everything is fine or that it will never get any better are ways of going nowhere or of making it impossible to go anywhere. Either approach implies that there is no road out or that, if there is, you don't need to or can't go down it. You can. We have. ~ Rebecca Solnit

Then all at once he´d hear his own voice enunciating clearly and firmly, feel its reverberance along the walls and ceiling, feel ears growing tense, men and women leaning forward in their chairs, see the rows of faces quite clearly, the groups of people who couldn´t find seats crowding at the doors. Phrases like `protest, massaction, united working-class of this country and the world, revolution´, would light up the eyes and faces under him like the glare of a bonfire. ~ John Dos Passos

For twenty years I have sat alone at a desk tinkering with sentences and then sending them out, and for most of my literary life the difference between throwing something in the trash and publishing it was imperceptible... ~ Rebecca Solnit

Non-violence is not a passive idea. It is ethical activism at its political best ~ Ela Bhatt

Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed. ~ Thomas Sowell

It isn't polyamory that is only for the young and carefree, I explain, but activism. ~ Elisabeth Sheff

How do I stop eleven million people from buying the grape? ~ Dolores Huerta

Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power. Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes that affirmative action is good for black people, does it make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people who think that affirmative action discriminates against them.
But leftist activists do not take such an approach because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred. ~ Theodore J. Kaczynski

Promoting the human capacity to reason and make decisions: that is the purpose of whistle-blowing, of activism, of political journalism. ~ Glenn Greenwald

Life wants to live, but more than that, it wants to love. ~ Rivera Sun

To spend one's life being angry, and in the process doing nothing to change it, is to me ridiculous. I could be mad all day long, but if I'm not doing a damn thing, what difference does it make? ~ Charles Fuller

Take those kids and raise them up, teach them how to drink out of a righteous cup. ~ James Brown

Today, I encourage you to consider your life, your values, and your relationships and consider who you are by the test of what you do. I invite you to re-affirm the values you hold dear and decide today to stand up for what you believe is right and good in the world. ~ Genevieve Gerard

I'm standing here saying that those who miss the boat now, will miss it forever. So if you want to be in Africa, think about investing. ~ Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

The tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. ~ Anderson Cooper

What drew me to both study and activism was the formative experience of the civil rights movement. ~ David Price

Understanding the shadow masculine or shadow feminine in oneself is
crucial not only for enhancing one 's own wholeness but for championing
justice between genders and all diverse groups in the community. If the
shadow is not recognized and dealt with, it will dominate an individual or ... community, resulting in untold suffering. ~ Carolyn Baker

Everybody needs a helping hand, take a look at your fellow man. ~ Amy Grant

Pop stars are so busy having a career that they don't really have a lot of time for activism. ~ Annie Lennox

Activism is my rent for living on the planet. ~ Alice Walker

The power of the people is much stronger than the people in power. ~ Wael Ghonim

Do what you can, when you can. ~ Johnny Worthen

That attitude that fighting is probably not fair, but you have to defend yourself anyway and damage the enemy, has been profoundly consequential as far as my political activism goes. ~ June Jordan

The biggest lesson is you get the country you work for. If you sit back and simply allow your country to be, it is highly unlikely to be the kind of country you want. You have to be active. ~ Mohsin Hamid

In a world where very few people care if you live or die, there is a light that shines in the distance. It has a name that they call hope and it carries with it people that never stop caring. They learned long ago that extending mercy was not a choice, but a place where God lives. ~ Shannon L. Alder

It was civil disobedience that won them their civil rights. ~ Tariq Ali

All that is needed is to listen. The love song of the world enters our souls through the language of life. Our touchstone of strength forms the shape of our beloveds. Courage surges into our limbs. We rise. One foot steps in the direction of change. This is the Love that thrusts the world through eternity and carries us forward into the infinity of tomorrow. It sings overhead, scouring the barriers of reality, looking for an opening. ~ Rivera Sun

I have often wondered whether a person is justified in neglecting his own family to fight for opportunities for others. ~ Nelson Mandela

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. ~ Jose Andres

To crank up a noisy bad stance out in a place like San Francisco and start yelling about "getting things done in Washington" is like sitting far back in the end zone seats at the Super Bowl and screaming at the Miami linebackers "Stop Duane Thomas! ~ Hunter S. Thompson

If I look at the mass I will never act. ~ Mother Teresa

We need to reshape the movement as one of grassroots activists, and not 'professional activists' who populate the seemingly endless number of national animal rights groups. For many people, activism has become writing a check to a national group that is very pleased to have you leave it to them. Although it is important to give financial support to worthy efforts only, giving money is not enough and giving to the wrong groups can actually do more harm than good. ~ Gary L. Francione

My life wouldn't be easier if I were thin. My life would be easier if this culture wasn't obsessed with oppressing me because I'm fat. The solution to a problem like bigotry is not to do everything in our power to accommodate the bigotry. It is to get rid of the bigotry. ~ Virgie Tovar

I was surprised to find myself in tears. Because these women had trusted me to help as a writer, I began to see a way of bringing together two things - writing and activism - that until then had torn me apart in everyday life. ~ Gloria Steinem

I knew that my newfound activism and feminism was going to improve my acting, because I was seeing things not just in very narrow, individual, kind of Freudian terms, but seeing them in a much broader, societal way that was going to deepen and enrich my talent. ~ Jane Fonda

To sin by silence, when they should protest, makes cowards of men. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In this age of consumer activism, pinpoint marketing, and unlimited and immediate information, we want the impossible: products and producers that will assure us that we are fashionable, and that don't pollute, harm animals, or contain weird chemicals, that run on alternative energy, pay their workers good salaries, recycle their scraps, use natural ingredients, buy from local suppliers, donate generously to charity, donate in particular to their neighborhoods, and don't throw their weight around by lobbying. (Or maybe they should lobby for the right causes?) ~ Fran Hawthorne

Activists have not been passive. For decades, we have tried every tactic to shift the course of our governments. We have voted, written editorials and manifestos, donated money, held signs, protests in marches, blocked streets, shared links, signed petitions, held workshops, knitted scarves, learn to farm, turned off the television, programmed apps, engaged in direct action, committed vandalism, launched legal challenges against pipelines . . . and occupied the financial districts. All this has been for naught. A new approach to activism and a new kind of protest are desperately needed. ~ Micah White

Almost all these hotspots around the world, most have been destroyed to the point where there is no wildlife and very little of the natural world left. ~ Jim Fowler

If Paul Revere had been a modern day citizen, he wouldn't have ridden down Main Street. He would have tweeted. ~ Alec Ross

Hopefulness is risky, since it is after all a form of trust, trust in the unknown and the possible, even in discontinuity. To be hopeful is to take on a different persona, one that risks disappointment, betrayal... ~ Rebecca Solnit

Traditionalists will have to master techniques of sustained activism formerly monopolized by the left. ~ Christopher Lasch

I'm very active in pushing for net neutrality and an open Internet. There are countless other causes I support personally and privately, but I try to keep my public activism fairly focused. ~ Damian Kulash

Direct democracy is lazy anarchy, for people who don't want to be governed but are too lazy to govern themselves. They want participation served to them. ~ Heather Marsh

Roots, he wrote, symbolize more than underground strong-arms. Roots are also origins, the tendrils of a sprouting seed that give rise to life. ~ Rivera Sun

There is also the fact that, unlike China, India is a democracy. Thus, Mumbai's robust activism functions as a brake on the drive to impose from above the fantasy of a global city. ~ Gyan Prakash

I think the church is often a culprit in the busyness, especially in the evangelical church. Again, it's part of being Americans. Part of being evangelicals too is that we're highly activist. We are always diving in, willing to solve problems, and again there's a lot good there. But we also need the theological balance that the Kingdom is not ours to bring or ours to create. ~ Kevin DeYoung

The victims of right-wing violence are typically immigrants, Muslims, and people of color, while the targets of environmental and animal rights activism are among "the most powerful corporations on the planet" - hence the state's relative indifference to the one and obsession with the other.

The broader pattern helps to explain one partial exception to the left/right gap in official scrutiny - namely, the domestic aspects of the "War on Terror." Al Qaeda is clearly a reactionary organization. Like much of the American far right, it is theocratic, anti-Semitic, and patriarchal. Like Timothy McVeigh, the 9/11 hijackers attacked symbols of institutional power, killing a great many innocent people to further their cause. But while the state's bias favors the right over the left, the Islamists were the wrong kind of right-wing fanatic. These right-wing terrorists were foreigners, they were Muslim, and above all they were not white. And so, in retrospect and by comparison, the state's response to the Oklahoma City bombing seems relatively restrained - short-lived, focused, selectively targeting unlawful behavior for prosecution. The government's reaction to the September 11th attacks has been something else entirely - an open-ended war fought at home and abroad, using all variety of legal, illegal, and extra-legal military, police, and intelligence tactics, arbitrarily jailing large numbers of people and spying on entire communities of immigrants, Muslims, and Middle ~ Kristian Williams

People don't move into action because of statistics. They move because of their hearts. We're hardwired with empathy neurons, billions of them, and human beings are evolutionarily programmed to help one another. ~ Rivera Sun

With his face all scrunched up and twisted with anger, he looked just like Draco Malfoy in Harry Potter. Sometimes when someone is making an idiot of themselves, especially on live television, it's just better to let them go ahead. ~ Cecile Richards

Ronan was not going to Henry Cheng's under any circumstances. All that smiling and activism gave him a rash. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

...politically charged punk that combined activism and art. Forged out of a meeting of friends who decided they wanted to start a "girl riot," the women gave rise to bands like Bikini Kill and Sleater-Kinney, addressing rape and violence in their songs, publishing zines, popularizing "girl power"... ~ Jessica Bennett

Philanthropy is activism. ~ Eli Broad

It is important for upcoming activists to study American history, as well as political and philosophical thought. It is unlikely that what you hope to accomplish is new. Current activism is almost always linked to the history of revolution worldwide, and Americans have a special connection to this legacy because our nation was born out of the struggle against tyranny. ~ John Lewis

Activism, to me, I don't know if it really works. It may work for somebody else, but it does not work for me. ~ Tommy Chong