quotes by Activist Quotes

“It's your life - but only if you make it so. The standards by which you live must be your own standards, your own values, your own convictions in regard to what is right and wrong, what is true and false, what is important and what is trivial. When you adopt the standards and the values of someone else . . . you surrender your own integrity. You become, to the extent of your surrender, less of a human being.”

“That is the injustice of a woman's lot. A woman has to bring up her children; and that means to restrain them, to deny them things they want, to set them tasks, to punish them when they do wrong, to do all the unpleasant things. And then the father, who has nothing to do but pet them and spoil them, comes in when all her work is done and steals their affection from her.”

“The surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.”

“I believe all war to be wholly wrong.”

“Life's not about expecting, hoping and wishing. It's about doing, being and becoming. It's about t Learn from the mistakes of others. You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.”

“I think that each of us is so much alike, and yet at the same time we are so different, and I have a feeling that if you encountered difficulty, and I with my age encountered the same difficulty, I would respond one way, and you would respond another. Neither would be right or wrong. It's just that each of us is courageous, and that's what I encourage, courage, and the courage to see, and the courage to say to oneself what one has seen. Don't be in denial.”

“No charter of freedom will be worth looking at which does not ensure the same measure of freedom for the minorities as for the majority.”

“If what passed as nonviolence does not enable people to protect the honour of women, or if it does not enable women to protect their own honour, it is not nonviolence.”

“When we decided to take up arms, it was because the only other choice was to surrender and to submit to slavery.”

“Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.”

“The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse-and-buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.”

“Floyd Paterson? Boy, he's the complete opposite to me. He no way like me. They go down in history for just being athletes. I'm getting more praise and credit for doing what I'm doing now on this show than coming here and beating five of your English champions.”

“I have no secret methods. I know no diplomacy save that of truth. I have no weapon but non-violence.”

“You have to go with your gut sometimes, and how you feel.”

“I have never admitted the right of an elderly author to alter the work of a young author, even when the young author happens to be his former self.”

“You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?”

“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.”

“Power has to be insecure to be responsive.”

“There comes a time when a moral man can't obey a law which his conscience tells him is unjust.”

“Life give to you what you gave to it. So give your best.”

“In today's climate in our country, which is sickened with the pollution of pollution, threatened with the prominence of AIDS, riddled with burgeoning racism, rife with growing huddles of the homeless, we need art and we need art in all forms. We need all methods of art to be present, everywhere present, and all the time present.”

“Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honour false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons”

“Just as a tree without roots is dead, a people without history or cultural roots also becomes a dead people.”

“It's not like I idolize this one guy Machiavelli. I idolize that type of thinking where you do whatever's gonna make you achieve your goal.”

“Each child belongs to all of us and they will bring us a tomorrow in direct relation to the responsibility we have shown to them.”

“The hope of a secure and livable world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood.”

“A woman's intuition has often proved truer than a man's arrogant assumption of knowledge.”

“We must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.”

“I have known only one way of carrying on missionary work, viz., by personal example and discussion with searchers for knowledge.”

“Anyone of us can be a rainbow in somebody's clouds. I want the University of Cincinnati to be a rainbow in the clouds. The University of Cincinnati is really a possibility of hope; it is a rainbow.”

“If you are in a country that is progressive, the woman is progressive. If you're in a country that reflects the consciousness toward the importance of education, it's because the woman is aware of the importance of education. But in every backward country you'll find the women are backward, and in every country where education is not stressed its because the women don't have education.”

“Pure motives can never justify impure or violent action.”

“What is it but my ahimsa that draws thousands of women to me in fearless confidence?”

“If I refuse to allow my leg to be amputated, its mortification and my death may prove that I was wrong; but if I let the leg go, nobody can ever prove that it would not have mortified had I been obstinate. Operation is therefore the safe side for the surgeon as well as the lucrative side.”

“Cow-slaughter and man-slaughter are in my opinion two sides of the same coin.”

“To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.”

“Those who have their hands dyed deep in blood cannot build a nonviolent order for the world.”

“Let a short Act of Parliament be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizenmay assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols or bombs without incurring any penalties.”

“Sometimes I feel like crying, tears of happiness, tears of joy, to see the distance we've come and the progress we've made.”

“You can't talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can't talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of the slums. You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then. You are messing with captains of industry. Now this means that we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong with capitalism.”

“True sympathy is the personal concern which demands the giving of one's soul.”

“Whether it's boxing, basketball, or badminton, one must be ready to succeed before entering the arena...long before the lights come up.”

“I wasn't a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know.”

“Superman don't need no seat belt.”

“Disobedience, the rarest and most courageous of the virtues, is seldom distinguished from neglect, the laziest and commonest of the vices.”

“The giving of love and understanding is an education in itself.”

“He who is greatest among you shall be a servant. That's the new definition of greatness. ... By giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve.”

“I had something to do, which most kids really need. Something they can look forward to - a goal, a purpose to work towards. Something to achieve. Keeps them out of trouble.”

“Love can often be misguided and do as much harm as good, but respect can do only good. It assumes that the other person's stature is as large as one's own, his rights as reasonable, his needs as important.”

“The death sentence is a barbaric act.”