John Lewis Quotes

“Too many of us still believe our differences define us.”

“We will stand up for what is right, for what is fair and what is just. Health care is a right and not a privilege.”

“There's nothing wrong with a little agitation for what's right or what's fair.”

“Sensible people have got to work together.”

“We must be headlights and not taillights.”

“The lessons of nonviolence are universal. Not just for America.”

“Nonviolence is one of those immutable principles that we cannot and must not deviate from.”

“I think putting the United States down across the world is not something that a responsible person does.”

“I would say the country is a different country. It is a better country. The signs I saw when I was growing up are gone and they will not return. In many ways the walls of segregation have been torn down.”

“I believe that you see something that you want to get done, you cannot give up, and you cannot give in.”

“I want to see young people in America feel the spirit of the 1960s and find a way to get in the way. To find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble.”

“I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on their side of the aisle, look, we may have lost the election on the Democrat side, but it's time to come together.”

“I believe that teachers - whether in elementary schools, at the secondary level, or at colleges and universities - every teacher deserves the Nobel Peace Prize just for maintaining order in our schools!”

“When people tell me nothing has changed, I say come walk in my shoes and I will show you change.”

“I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience.”

“People must understand that people were beaten, arrested, jailed, and some people were murdered, while attempting to register to vote, or to get others to register to vote.”

“When I was growing up in rural Alabama, it was impossible for me to register to vote. I didn't become a registered voter until I moved to Tennessee, to Nashville, as a student.”

“I would like to think that we have made much more progress, that we've come much further, to have someone like a Donald Trump to emerge as the nominee of a major political party.”

“It's a shame and a disgrace that so few people take part in the political process.”

“We are one people with one family. We all live in the same house... and through books, through information, we must find a way to say to people that we must lay down the burden of hate. For hate is too heavy a burden to bear.”

“John Lewis stood up and said in an interview that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. It's insanity.”

“Some of us gave a little blood for the right to participate in the democratic process.”

“We must continue to go forward as one people, as brothers and sisters.”

“Now we have black and white elected officials working together. Today, we have gone beyond just passing laws. Now we have to create a sense that we are one community, one family. Really, we are the American family.”

“I believe in forgiveness; I believe in trying to work with people.”