Social Activist Quotes

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any

We, the people of South Africa, declare for all our country and the world to know:That South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white, and that no government can justly claim authority unless it is based on the will of the people.

A nonviolent system of government is clearly an impossibility so long as the wide gulf between the rich and the hungry millions persists.

When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?

My modesty has prevented me from declaring from the house top that the message of non-co-operation, nonviolence and swadeshi is a message to the world.

Truth is like a vast tree which yields more and more fruit the more you nurture it. The deeper the search in the mind of truth, the richer the discovery of the gems buried there.

The greater our level of understanding, the harder the tests become.

Peace between countries must rest on the solid foundation of love between individuals.

I appeal to the Youth and those on the ground: start talking to each other across divisions of race and political organizations.

Public opinion alone can keep a society pure and healthy.

The science of war leads one to dictatorship, pure and simple. The science of non-violence alone can lead one to pure democracy. Power based on love is thousand times more effective and permanent than power derived from fear of punishment. It is a blasphemy to say non-violence can be practiced only by individuals and never by nations which are composed of individuals. The nearest approach to purest anarchy would be a democracy based on non-violence. A society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy.

My main fight is for freedom and equality.

People don't realise what they had till it's gone. Like President Kennedy - nobody like him. Like The Beatles, there will never be anything like them. Like my man, Elvis Presley - I was the Elvis of boxing.

If we do not do something to prevent it, Africa's animals, and the places in which they live, will be lost to our world, and her children, forever. Before it is too late, we need your help to lay the foundation that will preserve this precious legacy long after we are gone.

It is music and dancing that make me at peace with the world.

Disobedience to be civil has to be open and nonviolent.

I would beseech you not only to be pure beyond suspicion but I would ask you to combine with stainless purity, great wisdom and great ability.

I've never really resented hard work because I've always liked it. Up every morning for roadwork. Going to the gymnasium every day at 12 o'clock. I never change my pattern.

Freedom alone is not enough without light to read at night, without time or access to water to irrigate your farm, without the ability to catch fish to feed your family.

The United States of America is a threat to world peace. Because what [America] is saying is that if you are afraid of a veto in the Security Council, you can go outside and take action and violate the sovereignty of other countries. That is the message they are sending to the world. That must be condemned in the strongest terms.

Apparently, I've acted like a terrorist. But I'm not a terrorist.

When a man gives way to anger, he only harms himself.

I am confident that nobody... will accuse me of selfishness if I ask to spend time, while I am still in good health, with my family, my friends and also with myself.

Exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires, but by removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to non-cooperate with their exploiters.

The mice which helplessly find themselves between the cats teeth acquire no merit from their enforced sacrifice.

There is no such thing as slow freedom. Freedom is like a birth. Till we are fully free we are slaves. All birth takes place in a moment.

The principle of majority does not work when differences on fundamentals are involved.

There is nothing more important in life than giving. Tolerance is forged when people look beyond their own desires

The British are weak in numbers, we are weak in spite of our numbers.

Be a life long student, read as many books as possible.

I try to learn as much as I can because I know nothing compared to what I need to know.

It's the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

Find yourself by losing yourself for others.

This belief in the necessity of English training has enslaved us. It has unfitted us for true national service.

We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day by the mass of people acting in harmony as if by instinct. If they were instinctively violent, the world would end in no time.

How can I make difference so that I may bring peace to this world that I love and cherish so much? A name flickers instantly in my mind.

A coward is less than a man. He does not deserve to be a member of a society of men and women

Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.

There are billions of people in the world, and every one of them is special. No one else in the world is like you.

We can change the world and make it a better place. It is in your hands to make a difference.

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life . . .

Employers ganging up against workers is like raising an army of elephants against ants.

Nonviolent action without the co-operation of the heart and the head cannot produce the intended result.

A true and nonviolent combination of labour would act like a magnet attracting to it all the needed capital.

No matter how insignificant the thing you have to do, do it as well as you can, give it as much of your care and attention as you would give to the thing you regard as most important. For it will be by those small things that you shall be judged.

If the government can set aside some spot for a elk to be a elk without being bothered, or a buffalo to be a buffalo without being shot down, there ought to be some place where a Negro can be a Negro without being Jim Crowed.

If there is a country that has committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United States of America. They don't care for human beings.... What I am condemning is that one power, with a president [George W. Bush] who has no foresight, who cannot think properly, is now wanting to plunge the world into a holocaust.

The majority of South Africans, black and white, recognize that apartheid has no future. It has to be ended by our own decisive mass action in order to build peace and security. The mass campaign of defiance and other actions of our organization and people can only culminate in the establishment of democracy.

Honour belongs to those who never forsake the truth even when things seem dark and grim, who try over and over again, who are never discouraged by insults, humiliation and even defeat.

Mankind has to get out of violence only through non-violence.

Swaraj does not depend on jail going. If it did, there are thousands of prisoners in jail today. It depends on everyone doing his or her own task.

My toughest opponent has always been me.

If anybody said that I should die if I did not take beef-tea or mutton, even under medical advice, I would prefer death.

In some ways, I saw the garden as a metaphor for certain aspects of my life. A leader must also tend his garden; he, too, plants seeds, and then watches, cultivates, and harvests the results. Like the gardener, a leader must take responsibility for what he cultivates; he must mind his work, try to repel enemies, preserve what can be preserved, and eliminate what cannot succeed.

No empire intoxicated with the red wine of power and the plunder of weaker races has yet lived long in this world.

I love boxing and it did a lot for me. But sometimes it made me think how savage human beings could be to each other. That wasn't the kind of boxer I wanted to be. My strategy was to be as scientific as I could when I fought. I didn't want to be seriously hurt, and I didn't want to do that to anybody else either.

What is imprisonment to the man who is fearless of death itself?

Everybody should take each other as they are, white, black, Indians, Creole. Then there would be no prejudice, nations would get along.

Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it.

Where there is love there is life.