Quotes & Sayings About Activism

Activists have not been passive. For decades, we have tried every tactic to shift the course of our governments. We have voted, written editorials and manifestos, donated money, held signs, protests in marches, blocked streets, shared links, signed petitions, held workshops, knitted scarves, learn to farm, turned off the television, programmed apps, engaged in direct action, committed vandalism, launched legal challenges against pipelines . . . and occupied the financial districts. All this has been for naught. A new approach to activism and a new kind of protest are desperately needed. — Micah White

It is incumbent upon us to do what we can, even if we cannot do much. — David Smail

I think there's a little more attention to human needs than to property rights. But I don't think much of political activism. It's so shortsighted. Most people are interested in their own personal comfort. I've said that about environmentalists. I think they care about bike paths and places to park their Volvos, not the planet as an abstraction. — George Carlin

There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives. — Audre Lorde

I've always been amused by the contention that brain work is harder than manual labor. I've never known a man to leave a desk for a muck-stick if he could avoid it. — John Steinbeck

It launched one worker, Eugene Debs, into a lifetime of activism for labor unions and socialism. Debs was arrested for supporting the strike. Two years later he wrote: The issue is Socialism versus Capitalism. I am for Socialism because I am for humanity. We have been cursed with the reign of gold long enough. Money constitutes no proper basis for civilization. The time has come to regenerate [renew] society - we are on the eve of a universal change. Like — Howard Zinn

To reform the world - means to reform upbringing... — Janusz Korczak

The most important assets we have are our bodies and our energy which can be put to good use as resources in political activism for poor and working people. — Cornel West

The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action. — Malcolm X

I admire Ai Weiwei for his art and his activism. His art is beautiful in form, and in function embodies the principles of populism and social consciousness I aspire to in my own practice. — Shepard Fairey

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

If I look at the mass I will never act. — Mother Teresa

I wonder sometimes what would happen if victory was imagined not just as the elimination of evil but the establishment of good... — Rebecca Solnit

If you start from a belief that the most knowledgeable person on earth does not have even one percent of the total knowledge on earth, that shoots down social engineering, economic central planning, judicial activism and innumerable other ambitious notions favored by the political left. — Thomas Sowell

Why is it so important to have fun? Because if you love your work (or your activism or your family time), then you'll want to do more of it. You'll think about it before you go to sleep and as soon as you wake up; your mind is always in gear. When you're that engaged, you'll run circles around other people even if they are more naturally talented. From what we've seen personally, the best predictor of success among young economists and journalists is whether they absolutely love what they do. If they approach their job like - well, a job - they aren't likely to thrive. But if they've somehow convinced themselves that running regressions or interviewing strangers is the funnest thing in the world, you know they have a shot. — Steven D. Levitt

You didn't choose God. He chose you. When you stop feeling hurt by everyone and plotting your comeback, he has some very important things he wants you to accomplish with your life. — Shannon L. Alder

Judicial activism, by definition, is a term applied to judges who render decisions with which you disagree. — James W. Mercer

A truly living human being cannot remain neutral. — Nadine Gordimer

[The ruling class] sees people in the working class as being almost animals. It sees itself as being synonymous with civilization and its cultivation as coming from its natural abilities and not from its wealth and privileged opportunities. It doesn't see that the way in which it monopolizes these things distorts the culture it derives from them and that this makes its culture irrational and an enemy of civilization. — Edward Bond

For the progressive left, social activism grounded in faith and theology crested in the 1960s. — Mike McCurry

Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly. — Mahatma Gandhi

'Empathy' is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash. — Karl Rove

I am, in general, favourable to activism and social movements and hostile to graft and corruption. — Tariq Ali

Whenever anybody gets involved in politics, its always exciting for me because we take for granted our freedoms and our abilities to effect change through political activism. — Emily Saliers

The only good produced by the disappearance of Africville was the appearance of a conscious black nationalism ... In this regard, Consecrated Ground is the heir of fierce, vengeful, and epic activism. — George Elliott Clarke

We are not at the bargaining table in agreement to end abuse to our world. We are on the battlefield deciding everyday if we will let this world die or live, by how we contribute to its treatment. — Shannon L. Alder

Buddhism holds that everything is in constant flux. Thus the question is whether we are to accept change passively and be swept away by it or whether we are to take the lead and create positive changes on our own initiative. While conservatism and self-protection might be likened to winter, night, and death, the spirit of pioneering and attempting to realize ideals evokes images of spring, morning, and birth. — Daisaku Ikeda

Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted. — Barack Obama

I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they'll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action. — Malcolm X

The question is not if we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists. — Martin Luther King Jr.

In the tangled hierarchy sinner and saint, divine and diabolical, sacred and profane are different faces of our collective Being. Therefore angry activism driven by rage, however justified it seems, is really not going to work. I believe that the tangled hierarchy wants us to move to the next state of evolution and very strongly desires us to take that quantum leap of creativity. — Deepak Chopra

I detect the activist returning with a vengence. — E.A. Bucchianeri

Living for a high purpose is as honorable as dying for it. — Carrie Chapman Catt

The last generation's Religious Right activism was, to the contrary, the exact opposite, affirming and reaffirming that they were not a theological movement but a political one. The tent was broad enough to include evangelical Protestants, Roman Catholics, Latter-day Saints, Orthodox Jews, and even socially conservative agnostics and atheists.7 The rhetoric was focused much less on the kingdom of God or on the gospel of Christ than on "traditional family values" or "our Judeo-Christian heritage. — Russell D. Moore

You decide your own level of involvement. — Chuck Palahniuk

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. — Elie Wiesel

Maybe subconsciously I've kept activism separate from acting because it's important to me in a more profound way. — Blythe Danner

What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. — Frederick Douglass

It is my feeling that as we grow older we should become not less radical but more so. I do not, of course, mean this in any political-party sense, but rather in a willingness to struggle for those things in which we passionately believe. Social activism and the struggle for social justice are often thought of as the natural activities of the young but not of the middle-aged or the elderly. In fact, I don't think this was ever true. — Margaret Laurence

Out of control judicial activism threatens traditional marriage in America. — Ernest Istook

War ... is ugly and brutalizing, and the nobility is in doing it without becoming ugly and brutalizing. — Dana Kramer-Rolls

Non-violence is not a passive idea. It is ethical activism at its political best — Ela Bhatt

I think, for one, the LGBTQ community is just a paragon of leadership, of standing up and saying "these are our rights, and we deserve them." As a model of activism, it's so wonderful what the community has been able to achieve towards goals like marriage equality. — Jill Stein

Why is it that the people who seem to have the most to say aren't doing anything at all? — Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

I don't get it. I just don't get it. If Art is supposed to imitate Life, why do they want all the actors to be thin? There are fat people in the world. Shouldn't there be a few of us actors to represent them? — Camryn Manheim

My activism really is for myself, because I see places in the world where I feel I should be. If there is something really bad, really evil, happening somewhere, then that is where I should be. I need, for myself, to feel that I have stood there. It feels a lot better than just watching it on television. — Alice Walker

We are limited only by our imagination and our will to act. — Ron Garan

A lot of people think of political activism as some grim duty, and I think we do have an obligation to be citizens - to be informed and engaged. — Rebecca Solnit

Words are fossilized butterfly wings,
pretty to look at sometimes,
but only good for Museums.
I want to miserably burn down the Museums. — Jeremiah Walton

The different strategies and visions of 'reformists' and 'radicals' are not the only subject of major debate within lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer politics. The fact is that only a tiny minority of non-heterosexuals are involved in any sort of political activism. Various writers and activists have noted with rising alarm an almost mass depoliticisation of lesbian and gay communities in the 1990s. The crass commercialism of the gay scene and the rise of the so-called pink pound and of 'lifestyle' as a signifier of sexual identity (and human worth) has allowed huge profits to be reaped. Playing on the insecurities of people sells 'packages' which can include everything from 'gay apartments' to 'gay holidays' and 'gay clothes' to designer drugs. — Richard Dunphy

We'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends. — Edward Snowden

He who dares not offend cannot be honest. — Thomas Paine

The state of interbeing is a vulnerable state. It is the vulnerability of the naive altruist, of the trusting lover, of the unguarded sharer. To enter it, one must leave behind the seeming shelter of a control-based life, protected by walls of cynicism, judgment, and blame. — Charles Eisenstein

There's a kind of activism that's more about bolstering identity than achieving results, one that sometimes seems to make the left the true heirs of the Puritans. Puritanical in that the point becomes the demonstration of one's own virtue rather than the realization of results. And puritanical because the somber pleasure of condemning things is the most enduring part of that legacy, along with the sense of personal superiority that comes from pleasure denied. The bleakness of the world is required as contrasting backdrop to the drama of their rising above. — Rebecca Solnit

Understand: the task of an activist is not to negotiate systems of power with as much personal integrity as possible
it's to dismantle those systems. — Lierre Keith

I do try to separate my personal activism - showing up at a demonstration or something - from what I write. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Being a woman and being gay is really a unique position in our society. I know in my experience of activism, oftentimes it makes a difference if something is women-focused. It's likely to get the attention of women much more easily. — Laura Ricketts

Around the world, about a thousand dolphins are held in captivity, while millions have been killed in purse seine tuna nets and drift nets. Tens of thousands of others have been "sacrificed" in the name of scientific research, some marine mammals merely to find out what they've been eating. — Richard O'Barry

My attention since 'Clueless' has been on family, relationships, activism, the planet, and my career. — Alicia Silverstone

Stonewall" has come to mark the origins of gay political activism although earlier groups in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the French movement that grew out of the May 1968 events cannot be ignored. — Chantal Zabus

You need the activism. You need people who are organized and willing to bring light to injustices in society. — Maya Harris

The necessity of reform mustn't be allowed to become a form of blackmail serving to limit, reduce, or halt the exercise of criticism. Under no circumstances should one pay attention to those who tell one: "Don't criticize, since you're not capable of carrying out a reform." That's ministerial cabinet talk. Critique doesn't have to be the premise of a deduction that concludes, "this, then, is what needs to be done." It should be an instrument for those for who fight, those who resist and refuse what is. Its use should be in processes of conflict and confrontation, essays in refusal. It doesn't have to lay down the law for the law. It isn't a stage in a programming. It is a challenge directed to what is. — Michel Foucault

My hope is that we can navigate through this world and our lives with the grace and integrity of those who need our protection. May we have the sense of humor and liveliness of the goats; may we have the maternal instincts and protective nature of the hens and the sassiness of the roosters. May we have the gentleness and strength of the cattle, and the wisdom, humility, and serenity of the donkeys. May we appreciate the need for community as do the sheep and choose our companion as carefully as do the rabbits. May we have the faithfulness and commitment to family as the geese, and adaptability and affability of the ducks. May we have the intelligence, loyalty, and affection of the pigs and the inquisitiveness, sensitivity, and playfulness of the turkeys.
My hope is that we learn from the animals what it is we need to become better people. — Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

The holistic acupuncturist and the sea turtle rescuer may not be able to explain the feeling, 'We are serving the same thing,' but they are. Both are in service to an emerging story of the People that is the defining mythology of a new kind of civilization. — Charles Eisenstein

My activism was, and is, unknown, unannounced, but somehow effective. — Eric Burdon

The naively cynical measure a piece of legislation, a victory, a milestone not against the past or the limits of the possible, but against their ideas of perfection... — Rebecca Solnit

If collapse is anything, it is a planetary immersion in the maelstrom of
paradox. Unless we understand and honor paradox, we will end up, like all of
the mainstream media on earth, asking all of the wrong questions. — Carolyn Baker

Finally, by making activism our priority, we fashion a reputation as rabble-rousing malcontents and foster hostility toward unbelievers that alienates us from them, and them from us. We need to let go of the notion that culture and — John F. MacArthur Jr.

The most basic activism we can have in our lives is to live consciously in a nation living in fantasies. Living consciously is living with a core of healthy self-esteem. You will face reality, you will not delude yourself. — Bell Hooks

Julia supposed that there was also a difference in perspective: 'The practical level was another level down [in 1960s social movements] and not so interesting. I don't know much about organizing, but I feel as though, if the reality of the situation doesn't change people's heads, then nothing's going to change their heads. Marches and those things are not the work of it. The work of it is whatever the work is. — Laura Kaplan

Technology works best when it facilitates human hope, activism, engagement & intervention. — Mal Fletcher

Acting is my career and activism is my passionate hobby. But acting is my livelihood. — William Baldwin

We urgently need to do - and I mean actually do - something radical to avert a global catastrophe. But I don't think we will.
I think we're fucked. — Stephen Emmott

Do what you can, when you can. — Johnny Worthen

Loving the Earth with a fierce devotion can mean that we view the damage being done to nature as attacks on our own family and kinship group. The despair and rage we feel as witnesses to terracide, animal exploitation and the everyday callous disregard for the environment can be channelled into creating awareness, resistance efforts, the earth rights movement, and by rejecting the numbing and destructive values of Empire. By opening our hearts to the Earth in our thoughts, words, actions and cultural life we will find sacred purpose in the co-creation of an earth-honoring society. Our re-enchantment with the natural world is essential for devoting ourselves to eco-activism, environmental healing, earth restoration and rewilding, and the future rests with us! — Pegi Eyers

Antiracism is not "my" campaign. I have been doing antiracism organizing, activism, educating and writing for 20 years, in one form or another, but it's not a personal crusade. My work is part of a larger tradition, and larger effort, involving mostly people of color, and of course some white allies as well. — Tim Wise

We have an historic opportunity for a great global healing and renewal. If we will accept the challenge of nonviolent activism with faith, courage, and determination, we can bring this great vision of a world united in peace and harmony from a distant ideal into glowing reality. — Coretta Scott King

If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution. — Ann Coulter

It is not my place to offer pep talks, aphorisms, or dictums. But if I had to give one piece of practical advice it would be this: Find something that you love that they're fucking with and then fight for it. If everyone did that--imagine the difference. (50) — David Gessner

As a Welsh speaker, I'm very conscious of how activism can effect real change. — Rhys Ifans

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity. — Jose Andres

The enormity of problems like hunger and social injustice can certainly motivate us to act. We can be convinced logically of the need for intervention and change. But it is the story of one individual that ultimately makes the difference - by offering
living proof. — John Capecci And Timothy Cage

They built a city of their dreams, with a thriving gift economy and vibrant culture that encouraged all participants to let loose their wildest, most glorious freak. They weren't protesting; they were celebrating. — Jonathan Talat Phillips

Environmental activism against the resource industry is widespread all over the world, but at the same time we have to realise that these are basic materials on which civilisation depends. We need to tap natural resources in a sustainable manner. — Anil Agarwal

Activism is not a journey to the corner store. It is a plunge into the unknown. The future is always dark. — Rebecca Solnit

Don't be a witness. Be an activist. — DaShanne Stokes

Somebody referred to what I do as subliminal activism, which I like. — Edward Burtynsky

This isn't about keeping mountains looking pretty. Ending mountaintop removal is about keeping humanity alive. — Rivera Sun

My activism is a result of my love. So whether it's trying to preserve the wilderness in Southern Utah or writing about an erotics of place, it is that same impulse - to try to make sense of the world, to try to preserve something that is beautiful, to ask the tough questions, the push the boundaries of what is acceptable. — Terry Tempest Williams

When feminism and gay activism set themselves against organized religion, they have the obligation to put something better in its place. — Camille Paglia

To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic. — Conor Oberst

Pop stars are so busy having a career that they don't really have a lot of time for activism. — Annie Lennox

The enemy is not individuals, churches, 'ex-gay' organisations or political parties; the enemy is ignorance. Change is created by focusing our energies on overcoming the latter instead of attacking the former. — Anthony Venn-Brown

Never explain, never retract, never apologize. Just get the thing done and let them howl. — Nellie L. McClung

Arise,awake,stop not until your goal is achieved. — Swami Vivekananda

They were dealt with as in war, and they naturally employed the means that were used against them. — Leo Tolstoy

Ronan was not going to Henry Cheng's under any circumstances. All that smiling and activism gave him a rash. — Maggie Stiefvater

To crank up a noisy bad stance out in a place like San Francisco and start yelling about "getting things done in Washington" is like sitting far back in the end zone seats at the Super Bowl and screaming at the Miami linebackers "Stop Duane Thomas! — Hunter S. Thompson

What lies between where you are and where you want to be sometimes requires traveling through the Twilight Zone. — Shannon L. Alder

I consider it my activism whenever I leave the house. — Kimberly Springer