Civil Rights Activist Quotes

“I've learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision.”

“To describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane in its perfect power. Or the climbing, falling colors of a rainbow.”

“At our best, we are all teachers”

“Never whine. Whining lets a brute know that a victim is in the neighborhood.”

“Don't get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that - if you dare. But get older because it's fun!”

“Don't let anybody raise you. You've been raised.”

“I've learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.”

“If you have a song to sing, who are you not to open your mouth and sing to the world?”

“Continue. Be loving and be strong. Be fierce and be kind. And don't give in and don't give up.'”

“The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.”

“The terrorist action of 9/11 gave birth to President Obama's entry to the White House. Not directly, but indirectly.”

“I answer the heroic question, 'Death, where is thy sting?' with 'It is in my heart and mind and memories.”

“When I forgive other people, I let them go, I free them from my ignorance. And as soon as I do, I feel lighter, brighter and better.”

“In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”

“It is sad but true that sometimes we need the tragedy to help us to see how human we are and how we are more alike than we are different.”

“My encouragement to you is to go tomorrow to the library.”

“Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues.”

“I made the decision to quit show business. Give up the skintight dresses and manicured smiles. The false concern over sentimental lyrics. I would never again work to make people smile inanely and would take on the responsibility of making them think.”

“Until recently each generation found it more expedient to plead guilty to the charge of being young and ignorant, easier to take the punishment meted out by the older generation (which had itself confessed to the same crime short years before). The command to grow up at once was more bearable than the faceless horror of wavering purpose, which was youth.”

“The children to whom we read simple stories may or may not show gratitude, but each boon we give strengthens the pillars of the world.”

“A single fantasy can transform a million realities.”

“You can never be great at anything unless you love it.”

“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.”

“I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes - it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'Well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all.”

“Take a day to heal from the lies you've told yourself and the ones that have been told to you.”