Political Movement Quotes

Where there is a sufficient social movement of self-reliant communities, there can be political change. There must be political change. ~ Jerry Brown

As the histories of ancient and modern democracies illustrate, the pressure of political movement in times of war, civil commotion, or general anxiety pushes in the direction of authority, not away from it. ~ Robert Heilbroner

National independence, and the preceding political struggles, helped create the space for literary creation in many post-colonial countries. Much of modern Indian or Chinese literature is inconceivable without the political movement for freedom from foreign rule. ~ Pankaj Mishra

For me, the beauty of feminism is that it is a social and political movement that has redefined the power and obligation of the self: self-possession and self-regulation as a tool for social reform. ~ Vivian Gornick

Many folks have asked me, 'How do you do it and why have you sacrificed so much to do this work?' The answer comes easy. I look at my daughter and find hope in that she is living in a world of struggle, of social and political movement. She and the other five-year-olds will grow up in a more just, more equitable world. She motivates me. ~ Lateefah Simon

If you really care about starting a movement, have the courage to follow and show others how to follow. And when you find a lone nut doing something great, have the guts to be the first one to stand up and join in. ~ Derek Sivers

Kitsch is the aesthetic ideal of all politicians and all political parties and movements. Those of us who live in a society where various political tendencies exist side by side and competing influences cancel or limit one another can manage more or less to escape the kitsch inquisition: the individual can preserve his individuality; the artist can create unusual works. But whenever a single political movement corners power, we find ourselves in the realm of totalitarian kitsch. ~ Milan Kundera

Outside, most people knew that decades ago, the religious fundamentalists lost the ability to transform society when they became a political movement. Their boycotts and protests were commonplace, any outcry against anything beyond the narrow range of what they saw as biblically acceptable was dismissed as a knee-jerk reaction. ~ Sigmund Brouwer

You get these insurgent movements of populism, left and right. An insurgent movement of populism took my political party over in the UK for example. ~ Tony Blair

As a political movement, feminism seeks to transform society by challenging and changing social institutions. Religion, on the other hand, seeks first to transform individuals through a personal relationship with God, which then results in a desire to work for the transformation of society. ~ Helen LaKelly Hunt

The Occupy movement found places where people who were feeling that anger could come and share it - and that is, as we all know, extremely important in any political movement. The Occupy sites became a way you could gauge the levels of anger and discontent. ~ Arundhati Roy

As he continued to talk to me, I realized one of the fundamental points about Islamism that so many people fail to understand. The way Osman was speaking wasn't in the orthodox, religious way of the imam with a stick; he was talking about politics, about events that were happening now. That's crucial to understanding what Islamism is all about: it isn't a religious movement with political consequences, it is a political movement with religious consequences. ~ Maajid Nawaz

The right to choose to abort a fetus is critical, as is the ability to effect that choice in real life, so it's great that Hillary Clinton wants to repeal the Hyde Amendment. But without welfare, single-payer health care, a minimum wage of at least $15--all policies she staunchly opposes--many people have to forgo babies they'd really love to have. That's not really a choice.

It seems ill-conceived to have tethered feminism to such a narrow issue as abortion. Yet it makes sense from an insular Beltway fundraising perspective to focus on an issue that makes no demands--the opposite, really--of the oligarch class; this is probably a big reason why EMILY'S List has never dabbled in backing universal pre-K or paid maternity leave; a major reason 'reproductive choice' has such a narrow and negative definition in the American political discourse.

The thing is, an abortion is by definition a story you want to forget, not repeat and relive. And for the same reason abortion pills will never be the blockbuster moneymakers heartburn medications are, abortion is a consummately foolish thing to attempt to build a political movement around. It happens once or twice in a woman's lifetime.

Kids, on the other hand, are with you forever. A more promising movement--one that goes against everything Hillary Clinton stands for--might take that to heart. ~ Liza Featherstone

Hitler wanted to hear all about the American skyscrapers ... but failed utterly to draw logical conclusions from the information ... He was passionately interested in the Ku Klux Klan ... He seemed to think it was a political movement similar to his own. ~ Ernst Hanfstaengl

Judicial activists are nothing short of radicals in robes
contemptuous of the rule of law, subverting the Constitution at will, and using their public trust to impose their policy preferences on society. In fact, no radical political movement has been more effective in undermining our system of government than the judiciary. And with each Supreme Court term, we hold our collective breath hoping the justices will do no further damage, knowing full well they will disappoint. Such is the nature of judicial tyranny. ~ Mark R. Levin

Al Qaeda is nothing more than a mutant supply chain. They're playing off the same platform as Wal-Mart and Dell. They're just not restrained by it. What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. That's what we're up against in Iraq. We're up against a suicide supply chain. ~ Thomas Friedman

Filipinos are not worse than any other colonized people except that our colonization was a little longer, and the independence movement was always dictated in political terms, never in social ones. We borrowed terms, but we didn't understand them. ~ Ferdinand Marcos

Even philosophies who have denounced pseudosciences like psychoanalysis, have condoned pseudoscientific economic theories like neoclassical microeconomics. It is far safer and easier to criticize Freud and Jung than to criticize Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek, because the latter are backed by political movements whereas the former are not. ~ Mario Bunge

A political movement must keep in touch with reality and the prevailing conditions. Long speeches, the shaking of fists, the banging of tables, and strongly worded resolutions out of touch with the objective conditions do not bring about mass action and can do a great deal of harm to the organization and the struggle we serve. ~ Nelson Mandela

We could have a political movement going if it had been properly organized but the Monarchy's done itself enormous damage possibly beyond the point of long-term recovery. ~ Anthony Holden

A leader who accepts the outside financing of his movement is like the man who accustoms his body to live on medication. To the extent an organism is administered medication, to the same extent it is condemned to being unable to react on its own. Moreover, when it is deprived of the medication, it dies; it is at the mercy of the pharmacist! Likewise, a political movement is at the mercy of those who finance it. These could cease their financing at any given moment and the movement, unaccustomed to living on its own, dies. ~ Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

But if we are to say anything important, if fiction is to stay relevant and vibrant, then we have to ask the right questions. All art fails if it is asked to be representative - the purpose of fiction is not to replace life anymore than it is meant to support some political movement or ideology. All fiction reinscribes the problematic past in terms of the present, and, if it is significant at all, reckons with it instead of simply making it palatable or pretty. What aesthetic is adequate to the Holocaust, or to the recent tragedy in Haiti? Narrative is not exculpatory - it is in fact about culpability, about recognizing human suffering and responsibility, and so examining what is true in us and about us. If we're to say anything important, we require an art less facile, and editors willing to seek it. ~ Michael Copperman

We believe it is the duty of the vanguard political movement which brings change to educate people's outlook ~ Steven Biko

Could we have seen this efflorescence of stupidity? Yes, because every mass political movement unleashes the worst in human behaviour and admires it. For a time at least. ~ Doris Lessing

Feminism as a political movement has to specifically address the needs of men in their struggle to revolutionize their consciousness. ~ Bell Hooks

Predatory animals usually devour prey in order to convert flesh into fuel. Most human predators, however, seek power, not food. To destroy or damage something is to take its power. This applies equally to a political movement, a government, a campaign, a career, a marriage, a performance, a fortune, or a religion. To push a pie into the face of the world's richest man is to take his power, if only for a moment. ~ Gavin De Becker

The project of organizing a democratic political movement entails the hope that one's ideas and beliefs are not merely idiosyncratic but speak to vital human needs, interests and desires, and therefore will be persuasive to many and ultimately most people. But this is a very different matter from deciding to put forward only those ideas presumed (accurately or not) to be compatible with what most people already believe. ~ Ellen Willis

When we say that this definition of good and evil is objective, what we mean is that it is as objective as we can be at this time, and to the best of our knowledge about the universe. This definition is based on what we know about how the universe works.
It is not based on the revealed wisdom of any one faith or political movement. It is common to the best principles of all of them, but it is based on what we know rather than what we believe. In that sense, it is objective. Of course, what we know about the universe, and our place in it, is constantly changing as we add more information and gain new insights. We are never perfectly objective about anything, that is true, but we can be less objective, or we can be more objective. ~ Gregory David Roberts

Without a movement pressing for change, there's little hope. We've got to work the political system to make this happen fast. The physics and chemistry are daunting. The resources on the other side are very large. ~ Bill McKibben

As an artist the nuance is your task. Your task is not to simplify. Even should you choose to write in the simplest way, a la Hemingway, the task remains to impart the nuance, to elucidate the complication, to imply the contradiction. Not to erase the contradiction, not to deny the contradiction, but to see where, within the contradiction, lies the tormented human being. To allow for the chaos, to let it in. You must let it in. Otherwise you produce propaganda, if not for a political party, a political movement, then stupid propaganda for life itself
for life as it might itself prefer to be publicized. ~ Philip Roth

I'm often quite gloomy about the prospects for the human future. But, although I have no competence to intervene directly in a political movement, I hope that what I write may, in combination with the suggestions of others, cause a shift in perspective that will inspire a world-wide movement to accept the only solution to climate change. And before it's too late. ~ Philip Kitcher

In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or even economics, but morality. Its advocates are basically opposed to the idea that wages are a market price-determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of apples or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader political movement of which the demand for a living wage is the leading edge is ultimately doomed to failure: For the amorality of the market economy is part of its essence, and cannot be legislated away. ~ Paul Krugman

There is a serious tendency towards capitalism among the well-to-do peasants. This tendency will become rampant if we in the slightest way neglect political work among the peasants during the co-operative movement and for a very long period after. ~ Mao Zedong

Whether we regard the Women's Liberation movement as a serious threat, a passing convulsion, or a fashionable idiocy, it is a movement that mounts an attack on practically everything that women value today and introduces the language and sentiments of political confrontation into the area of personal relationships. ~ Arianna Huffington

I believe that feminism has become a political movement that seeks to obtain unlimited rights for woman without corresponding responsibilities via the suppression of feminism.Under my definition, helping oppressed women in other countries falls outside the scope of the movement's interests. ~ Mike Adams

Don't be obsessed with yet another revolution to overthrow the opposition, if you think that a violently excruciating revolution will make everything right. Let me ask a question about this brave new revolution of yours, when you have finally defeated all the bad guys and it's all perfect and just and fair - when you've finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you - the trouble-makers? How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one? You may most blindly and boastfully proclaim that you will win. But remember, no one wins for long. The wheel just keeps turning. ~ Abhijit Naskar

But I'm not interested in politics. I lose interest the microsecond it ceases to be emotional, when something becomes a political movement. What I'm interested in is emotions. ~ Bjork

Feminist effort to end patriarchal domination should be of primary concern precisely because it insists on the eradication of exploitation and oppression in the family context and in all other intimate relationships. It is that political movement which most radically addresses the person – the personal – citing the need for the transformation of self, of relationships, so that we might be better able to act in a revolutionary manner, challenging and resisting domination, transforming the world outside the self. ~ Bell Hooks

Now is the time to alter our government. Now is the time to stop the movement toward oligarchy. Now is the time to create a government which represents all Americans and not just the 1% ... No more excuses. We must all become involved in the political process. ~ Bernie Sanders

Zionism is not the Jewish people, it is a political movement. Many Jews do not support it, many non-Jews do. To say that Zionism is the Jewish people is like saying the Democratic Party is the American people. Yet to challenge the extremes of Zionism is to be called anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish. ~ David Icke

A new race-neutral language was developed for appealing to old racist sentiments, a language accompanied by a political movement that succeeded in putting the vast majority of blacks back in their place. ~ Michelle Alexander

We need a new political movement of women and men toward a new society. ~ Betty Friedan

I loved the comradeship of the sixties and the seventies, and I still maintain friendships with the people I worked with then - the ones that are still alive. That's one of the great gifts of our political movements, great friendships ... and also a few enmities. ~ Grace Paley

You can't create a political movement out of pabulum. ~ Robert Reich

The only good political movement I've seen lately was Occupy Wall Street. They had no leaders, which was genius. But unfortunately it always ends up with some hippy playing a flute. ~ John Lydon

A student of Syrian affairs soon becomes used to paradox. A comparatively small country, narrowly chauvinistic and jealous of its national sovereignty, Syria is nevertheless the repository, and has often been the origin, of oecumenical and transcendental ideas about Arab unity. Its society is one of the most heterogeneous in the Middle East and yet its leaders have been the proponents of a radical integrative political movement: Arab Nationalism. It has kindly and hospitable inhabitants, but it is also a police state where a man can be locked up indefinitely without a trial. Your Syrian friends are your friends for life, but a curious current of xenophobia runs through the country. Syrians love culture and natural beauty, but the ugliness of many Syrians towns and their architecture has to be seen to be believed. ~ David Roberts

A movie isn't a political movement, a party or even an article. It's just a film. At best it can add its voice to public outrage. ~ Ken Loach

Look, if you have a political movement that's strong enough that the power structure has to accommodate it, it'll get accommodated in some fashion-as in the case of union organizing rights here, the Wagner Act. But when that movement stops being active and challenging, those rights just aren't going to matter very much anymore. ~ Noam Chomsky

My pick for Best Political Move of the Year, which is the decisive (ph) and this means it is actually the best political movement is Bill Clinton getting on the phone and encouraging Donald Trump to run for the president. ~ Lawrence O'Donnell

I think an old style of addressing environmental problems is ebbing, but the rise of the so-called conservative, political movement in this country is not a trend towards the future but a reaction to this very broad shift that we are undergoing. ~ Paul Hawken

Any political movement directed against any body of our fellow-citizens because of their religious creed is a grave offense against American principles and American institutions. It is a wicked thing either to support or oppose a man because of the creed he possesses ... Such a movement directly contravenes the spirit of the Constitution itself. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

Women covering their heads is traditional, but now we're seeing more and more women covering themselves from head to toe. This is said to be for religious reasons but it's actually the conflation of religion and politics - every political movement has its slogans, flags and dress. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Muslim leaders should ask themselves what exactly their relationship is to a political movement that encourages young men to kill and maim on religious grounds. ~ Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Rather than standing or speaking for children, we need to stand with children speaking for themselves. We don't need a political movement for children ... [we need to] build environments and policies for our collective future. ~ Sandra Meucci

What is al Qaeda? It's an open source religious political movement that works off the global supply chain. ~ Thomas Friedman

What changed at the end of the eighteenth century, therefore, was not so much the discovery of a fundamentally new concept in human relations but the emergence of a political movement universalizing what until then had been largely a local and territorial impulse. This insight helps to explain the speed of change. What is notable for our purposes is the dualistic or two-sided character of the free-air principle. On the one hand, it reflected views about what was proper in human relationships, a sense of the wrongness of enslavement. But on the other hand, it had an exclusivist side, a statement of pride in national identity, coupled with a determination to prevent established relationships from being disrupted by the ~ Gavin Wright

There is a secret, I think. When you are front of a camera there is something that happens. Some relationship, some movement, some strange kind of suspension. That's where you find the layer in yourself that is duplicated in everyone. And when you get it right, if you can imagine all the hearts beating in one beat, it's like that. It's beautiful. ~ Juliette Binoche

No, the old proverb does not lie: Look for the brave in prison, and the stupid among the political leaders! ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

... it could be selling you anything. It could be a cult religion that could separate you from friends and family, or a quack medicine that could leave you paralyzed, or bogus political information that causes you to elect a numbskull to the presidency. God forbid. ~ Alan Alda

A brick could be used to revive the spiritual movement in America. But are we as a people willing to accept the unacceptable into our lives? Sadly, I'm afraid I'm crying at the answer, which I know to be unknowable. ~ Jarod Kintz

We [Afghanistan government] were in the process of cleaning up the government when these attacks happened in the north - not only in Kunduz, but also in other provinces. Our special forces are limited - we cannot be everywhere at the same time and we had to defend every district regardless of how insignificant it might be, because of the very social and political makeup of this country. ~ Ashraf Ghani

But insecurity remains the hallmark of Pakistan's political and intellectual conversation. Even a comment about, say, Pakistan's relatively low ranking among nations for book readership, is portrayed as an attack on the idea of Pakistan. ~ Husain Haqqani

There is no sadder tale in the annals of architecture than the virtual disappearance of the defining architectural form of the Modern Movement - publicly sponsored housing. ~ Martin Filler

Exile must be a terrible thing, said Norton sympathetically.
"Actually," said Amalfitano, "now I see it as a natural movement, something that, in its way, helps to abolish fate, or what is generally thought of as fate."
"But exile," said Pelletier, "is full of inconveniences, of skips and breaks that essentially keep recurring and interfere with anything you try to do that's important."
"That's just what I mean by abolishing fate," said Amalfitano. "But again, I beg your pardon. ~ Roberto Bolano

My favourite author is Leon Trotsky - the political philosophy and the way he writes is beautiful, and really relevant, too. ~ Andrej Pejic

Paul ... informs us that "our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." From a Kingdom perspective, if it's got "flesh and blood" - if it's human - it's not our enemy. To the contrary, if it's got "flesh and blood" it's someone we're commanded to love and thus someone we're to be fighting for - even if they regard us as their enemy.
We may profoundly disagree with their political, ethical, and religious views. We may find their lifestyle disgusting. They may in fact be criminals that need to be locked up behind bars. They may threaten us and our nation. Still, from a Kingdom perspective, our struggle is never against other humans. Our struggle is rather for them and against the evil that works to oppress both them and us. ~ Gregory A. Boyd

…95 percent of political commentary, whether spoken or written, is now polluted by the very politics it's supposed to be about. Meaning it's become totally ideological and reductive: The writer/speaker has certain political convictions or affiliations, and proceeds to filter all reality and spin all assertion according to those convictions and loyalties. Everybody's pissed off and exasperated and impervious to argument from any other side. Opposing viewpoints are not just incorrect but contemptible, corrupt, evil […] Political discourse is now a formulaic matter of preaching to one's own choir and demonizing the opposition. Everything's relentlessly black-and-whitened…. Since the truth is way, way more gray and complicated than any one ideology can capture, the whole thing seems to me not just stupid but stupefying… How can any of this possibly help me, the average citizen, deliberate about whom to choose to decide my country's macroeconomic policy, or how even to conceive for myself what that policy's outlines should be, or how to minimize the chances of North Korea nuking the DMZ and pulling us into a ghastly foreign war, or how to balance domestic security concerns with civil liberties? Questions like these are all massively complicated, and much of the complication is not sexy, and well over 90 percent of political commentary now simply abets the uncomplicatedly sexy delusion that one side is Right and Just and the other Wrong and Dangerous. Which is of course a pleasant ~ David Foster Wallace

As parents and guardians, we have to dissect what our children go through very carefully, and we have to look at each angle because as we all know, lies can't live forever. We have to remind our children that they are important to us. We have to teach them how to stand their ground and reassure them that they will not have to stand alone. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

The distinction between rich nations and poor nations is one of the great dominant political and international themes of our century. ~ Barbara Ward, Baroness Jackson Of Lodsworth

No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget. ~ George Osborne

If you think of life and death on a continuum, finding the point where it tips is complicated. It cuts across all political lines and gets to the root of our humanity. It requires faith informed by years of intimacy that you're doing what's right for your loved one. ~ Eleanor Clift

Labour is the source of all wealth, the political economists assert. And it really is the source
next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth. But it is even infinitely more than this. It is the prime basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labour created man himself. ~ Friedrich Engels

Their bodies continued to move together as one, making rhythmic love to each other slowly and thoroughly. And with each thrust, each deliberate movement, the air around them grew thicker, the bind connecting them grew stronger, and their blossoming love grew richer, reaching the depths of their very souls.
-Madison Thorne Grey, Sustenance ~ Madison Thorne Grey

What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been hitherto in the political order? Nothing. What does it desire to be? Something. ~ Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes

When I was 5, my father was very much my hero. And he ran for political office in a very thankless campaign for a very thankless position. And he did it because his mother had instilled in him, if you are someone who has the capacity to make a great change, you have the responsibility. ~ Howard Warren Buffett

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today. ~ Thomas Sowell

Speaking to a foreigner was the dream of every student, and my opportunity came at last. When I got back from my trip down the Yangtze, I learned that my year was being sent in October to a port in the south called Zhanjiang to practice our English with foreign sailors. I was thrilled.

Zhanjiang was about 75 miles from Chengdu, a journey of two days and two nights by rail. It was the southernmost large port in China, and quite near the Vietnamese border.

It felt like a foreign country, with turn-of-the-century colonial-style buildings, pastiche Romanesque arches, rose windows, and large verandas with colorful parasols. The local people spoke Cantonese, which was almost a foreign language. The air smelled of the unfamiliar sea, exotic tropical vegetation, and an altogether bigger world.

But my excitement at being there was constantly doused by frustration. We were accompanied by a political supervisor and three lecturers, who decided that, although we were staying only a mile from the sea, we were not to be allowed anywhere near it. The harbor itself was closed to outsiders, for fear of 'sabotage' or defection. We were told that a student from Guangzhou had managed to stow away once in a cargo steamer, not realizing that the hold would be sealed for weeks, by which time he had perished. We had to restrict our movements to a clearly defined area of a few blocks around our residence.

Regulations like these were part of our daily li ~ Jung Chang

Soldiers are the foundation of an army; unless they are imbued with a progressive political spirit, and unless such a spirit is fostered through progressive political work, it will be impossible to achieve genuine unity between officers and men, impossible to arouse their enthusiasm for the War of Resistance to the full, and impossible to provide an excellent basis for the most effective use of all our technical equipment and tactics. ~ Mao Zedong

It is visible then that it was not any Heathen Religion or other Idolatrous Superstition, that first put Man upon crossing his Appetites and subduing his dearest Inclinations, but the skilful Management of wary Politicians; and the nearer we search into human Nature, the more we shall be convinced, that the Moral Virtues are the Political Offspring which Flattery begot upon Pride. ~ Bernard De Mandeville

The Christian social witness is achieved only insofar as Christians are deeply implicated in the real life of society - in unions and political clubs and citizen groups and the like; it is not made by Christian people gathering off by themselves in a parish house to study and discuss social issues. ~ William Stringfellow

I am driven into grudging toleration of the Conservative party because it is the party of nonpolitics, of resistance to politics. I have seen how many of the evils of life - failure, loneliness, fear, boredom, inability to communicate - are ineradicable by political means, and that attempts so to eradicate them are disastrous. ~ Kingsley Amis

Our current tax code is one that was designed by and for the benefit of politicians and lobbyists. It punishes achievement and rewards laziness. It punishes the voting blocks unimportant to politicians, and rewards voting blocks who keep them in office. ~ Neal Boortz

We hold that the Constitution does not forbid the states minor intrusions into an individual's body under stringently limited conditions. ~ William J. Brennan

And it started out fun. We were chattering enthusiastically, flipping between CNN, MSNBC, and FOX News. But as the evening wore on, and the numbers rolled in, it got quieter, and I found myself becoming intensely depressed. Why was I putting myself through this? The issues I've devoted my life to have become so marginalized by the coverage that they have no possible relevance to me. I can't even blame the media - people simply don't care about alternate-party politics. And why should they? I'm so far in the minority that my activism is a joke, a punchline that stopped being funny years ago. It goes beyond rooting for the underdog. It's not rooting for the Giants: it's more like, say, rooting for the Twins. But during the Super Bowl. ~ Phillip Andrew Bennett Low

The reason people hate America is because they don't like being treated like garbage by arrogant, pompous, hypocritical, self-righteous, duplicitous, imperialist political and bureaucratic hacks. ~ Jacob G. Hornberger

These are not red or blue issues - they are the human rights issues of our generation. We are here begging for our lives. If today's political officeholders cannot accomplish real change on guns and gun issues, we will vote together on these issues in the next election and elect their successors . . . ~ Mark M. Bello

I was married to a Fascist and I was married to a Marxist and neither one of them ever took out the garbage. ~ Lee Grant

The Olympic movement is divided into two very distinct eras. ~ Bill Toomey

The essence of neo-colonialism is that the State which is subject to it is, in theory, independent and has all the outward trappings of international sovereignty. In reality its economic system and thus its political policy is directed from outside. ~ Kwame Nkrumah

There are a lot of things that aren't your fault. Or mine, either. Not the fault of prophecies, or curses, or DNA, or absurdity. Not the fault of Structuralism or the Third Industrial Revolution. We all die and disappear, but that's because the mechanism of the world itself is built on destruction and loss. Our lives are just shadows of that guiding principle. Say the wind blows. It can be a strong, violent wind or a gentle breeze. But eventually every kind of wind dies out and disappears. Wind doesn't have form. It's just a movement of air. ~ Haruki Murakami

The Qur'ān began by criticizing two closely related aspects of that society: the polytheism or multiplicity of gods which was symptomatic of the segmentation of society, and the gross socioeconomic disparities that equally rested on and perpetuated a pernicious divisiveness of mankind. The two are obverse and converse of the same coin: only God can ensure the essential unity of the human race as His creation, His subjects, and those responsible finally to Him alone. The economic disparities were most persistently criticized, because they were the most difficult to remedy and were at the hear of social discord - although tribal rivalries, with their multiple entanglements of alliance, enmity, and vengeance, were no less serious, and the welding of these tribes into a political unity was an imperative need. Certain abuses of girls, orphans, and women, and the institution of slavery demanded desperate reform. ~ Fazlur Rahman

My grandmother had never been very political, and she sure didn't follow high finance. But decades later, she was still repeating her line that she knew two things about Franklin Roosevelt: He made it safe to put money in banks and---she always paused here and smiled---he did a lot of other good things.

And that was my pitch to Congressman Frank. Start with something that people understand, something that solves a problem they can see. Do that, and then they'll have confidence in the work you do to fix the parts they can't see...

Start simple. Fix something people can see. ~ Elizabeth Warren

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. ~ Anais Nin

Politics is politics; art is art. If you play a political role, you have to stop being an artist. ~ Youssou N'Dour