Quotes by Activists - Page 5

One passionate heart can brighten the world. From person to person the chain reaction burns through us — setting heart to heart ablaze, and lighting the way for us all!
Bryant McGill
There is a heady sense of manhood that comes from advancing from apathy to commitment, from timidity to courage, from passivity to aggressiveness. There is an intoxication that comes from standing up to the police at last.
David T. Dellinger
It is astounding what power being kind, mannered, polite and considerate has in transforming your life.
Bryant McGill
The secret to unseating great power, is not to move the other direction, but to compete directly against their goals.
Bryant McGill
People often don't understand the engine that drives corruption. Particularly in India, they assume government equals corruption, private companies equal efficiency. But government officials are not genetically programmed to be corrupt. Corruption is linked to power. If it is the corporations that are powerful, then they will be corrupt.
Arundhati Roy
Those with unearned privileges often spin things as 'political correctness' to further silence those they wish to oppress.
DaShanne Stokes
The inability to get something out of your head is a signal that shouts, “Don’t forget to deal with this!” As long as you experience fear or pain with a memory or flashback, there is a lie attached that needs to be confronted. In each healing step, there is a truth to be gathered and a lie to discard.
Christina Enevoldsen
Finding beauty in the common is the sign of a gifted mind.
Bryant McGill
Real limitations can be reasonably challenged and expanded, but a hobbled mind is not going anywhere.
Bryant McGill
Changing your mind can move you into another dimension. Passages materialize exposing a hidden world that was there all along.
Bryant McGill
What mental health needs is more sunlight, more candor, more unashamed conversation about illnesses that affect not only individuals, but their families as well.
Glenn Close
You do not respond to a mosquito bite with a hammer.
Patrick L.O. Lumumba
On Atheism – If people continue to think of atheism as a kind of religion, then I demand all the perks that real religions get. I want to build big empty buildings where like-minded people can gather once a week to debate a non-existent deity. I want tax-exempt status. I want real food, not cheap wine and crackers. I want a rocking band. I want altar men! Not altar boys—altar MEN—and I want them to look like the chain-clad guy who hands an envelope to RuPaul at the beginning of “To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar”.
Marsha Hinds
Well, normally I’m against big things. I think the world is going to be saved by millions of small things. Too many things can go wrong when they get big.” — Pete Seeger (on how he felt about attending his big 90th birthday bash last year)
Pete Seeger
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
Maya Angelou
I got a text from my husband. “Manal, you are divorced,” it read. “Your papers are in the court of Khobar.” I was divorced in my absence, just as I had been married.
Manal Al-Sharif
The voices of peace can’t be silenced by bombs, shootings, sieges, brutality and barbarism. Despite the challenges we face as peace-makers in a troubled region, all we want is peace and our campaign #WeWantPeace continues.
Widad Akreyi
The victims of Ankara peace rally sacrificed their lives for peace and their only wish was We Want Peace.
Widad Akreyi
Peace is not just the absence of conflict; peace is the creation of an environment where all can flourish regardless of race, color, creed, religion, gender, class, caste or any other social markers of difference.
Nelson Mandela
On the 25th anniversary of 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence, let us remember that we have a chance to save lives! If we don't take it, we may regret it!
Widad Akreyi
I wish we'd be able to deliver our message at the global level on the need to recognize the past genocides in order to prevent new ones. Our message of peace and justice will hopefully reach every corner of the world.
Widad Akreyi
I reiterate my dedication to advocating for effective preventive strategies to end gun violence once and for all. In the face of the rising tensions and the widespread proliferation of small arms and light weapons, we call on everyone to join us to build conditions that will make world peace more likely. We all know that the road to building peace goes through ending conflicts and silencing the guns.
Widad Akreyi
First, people should open their eyes to see structural sin, which is the very existence of a First and Third World. As long as there's a First World, there won't be peace because there won't be justice or sharing. (Pedro Casaldaliga, p. 243)
Mev Puleo
We must plant trees, grow gardens instead of lawns, ride bicycles when we can and support responsible local businesses over big brands.
Bryant McGill
Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes.
Andrea Gibson
Privilege doesn't just insulate people from the consequences of their prejudice, it cuts them off from their humanity.
DaShanne Stokes
You were born where you were born and faced the future that you faced because you were black and for no other reason. The limits of your ambition were, thus, expected to be set forever. You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You are not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity.
James Baldwin
Because books saved my life, literally, I've become close to them
Malebo Sephodi
Look within - there is no end!
Malebo Sephodi
All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story; to vomit the anguish up.
James Baldwin
I believe that we have reached a stage in life in the economic development of Africa where moving forward is perilous, moving backwards is cowardice and standing still is suicidal but we must persevere because winners do not quit and quitter never win.
Patrick L.O. Lumumba
A fool can't help but be a fool, but when others follow, he makes a fool of us all.
DaShanne Stokes
Religious intolerance is an idea that found its earliest expression in the Old Testament, where the Hebrew tribe depicts itself waging a campaign of genocide on the Palestinian peoples to steal their land. They justified this heinous behavior on the grounds that people not chosen by their god were wicked and therefore did not deserve to live or keep their land. In effect, the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian peoples, eradicating their race with the Jew's own Final Solution, was the direct result of a policy of religious superiority and divine right. Joshua 6-11 tells the sad tale, and one needs only read it and consider the point of view of the Palestinians who were simply defending their wives and children and the homes they had built and the fields they had labored for. The actions of the Hebrews can easily be compared with the American genocide of its native peoples - or even, ironically, the Nazi Holocaust. With the radical advent of Christianity, this self-righteous intolerance was borrowed from the Jews, and a new twist was added. The conversion of infidels by any means possible became the newfound calling card of religious fervor, and this new experiment in human culture spread like wildfire. By its very nature, how could it not have? Islam followed suit, conquering half the world in brutal warfare and, much like its Christian counterpart, it developed a new and convenient survival characteristic: the destruction of all images and practices attributed to other religions. Muslims destroyed millions of statues and paintings in India and Africa, and forced conversion under pain of death (or by more subtle tricks: like taxing only non-Muslims), while the Catholic Church busily burned books along with pagans, shattering statues and defacing or destroying pagan art - or converting it to Christian use. Laws against pagan practices and heretics were in full force throughrout Europe by the sixth century, and as long as those laws were in place it was impossible for anyone to refuse the tenets of Christianity and expect to keep their property or their life. Similar persecution and harassment continues in Islamic countries even to this day, officially and unofficially.
Richard C. Carrier
I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.
Mahatma Gandhi
Sexual satisfaction eases the stranglehold of materialism, since status symbols no longer look sexual, but irrelevant. Product lust weakens where emotional and sexual lust intensifies. The price we pay for artificially buoying up this market is our heart's desire. The beauty myth keeps a gap of fantasy between men and women. That gap is made with mirrors; no law of nature supports it. It keeps us spending vast sums of money and looking distractedly around us, but its smoke and reflection interfere with our freedom to be sexually ourselves.
Naomi Wolf
Modern cosmetic surgeons have a direct financial interest in a social role for women that requires them to feel ugly. They do not simply advertise for a share of a market that already exists: Their advertisements create new markets. It is a boom industry because it is influentially placed to create its own demand through the pairing of text with ads in women's magazines. The industry takes out ads and gets coverage; women get cut open. They pay their money and they takes their chances. As surgeons grow richer, they are able to command larger and brighter ad spaces.
Naomi Wolf
The maturing of a woman who has continued to grow is a beautiful thing to behold.Or, if your ad revenue or your seven-figure salary or your privileged sexual status depend on it, it is an operable condition.
Naomi Wolf
The beauty myth of the present is more insidious than any mystique of femininity yet: A century ago, Nora slammed the door of the doll's house; a generation ago, women turned their backs on the consumer heaven of the isolated multiapplianced home; but where women are trapped today, there is no door to slam. The contemporary ravages of the beauty backlash are destroying women physically and depleting us psychologically. If we are to free ourselves from the dead weight that has once again been made out of femaleness, it is not ballots or lobbyists or placards that women will need first; it is a new way to see.
Naomi Wolf
Young women today feel vulnerable to judgment; if a harsh sentence is passed (or even suspected or projected), it is not her reputation that suffers so much as the stability of her moral universe. They did not have long to explore the sexual revolution and make it their own. Before the old chains had grown cold, while young women were still rubbing the circulation back into their ankles and taking tentative steps forward, the beauty industries levied a heavy toll on further investigations, and beauty pornography offered them designer bondage.
Naomi Wolf
Why should her lover, just because he is male, be in a position to judge her against other women? Why must she need to know her position and hate needing to, and hate knowing? Why should his reply have such exaggerated power? And it does. He does not know that what he says will affect the way she feels when they next make love. She is angry for a number of good reasons that may have nothing to do with this particular man's intentions. The exchange reminds her that, in spite of a whole fabric of carefully woven equalities, they are not equal in this way that is so crucial that its snagged thread unravels the rest.
Naomi Wolf
The Victorian woman became her ovaries, as today's woman has become her "beauty.
Naomi Wolf
Women who love themselves are threatening; but men who love real women, more so.
Naomi Wolf
The more I can accept the fact that change is moving all the time, and that the change I am experiencing right now is just the change of this moment and that this moment will change into the next and the next, the less need I will have to clutch in fear.
Sharon Weil
The natural world is built upon common motifs and patterns. Recognizing patterns in nature creates a map for locating yourself in change, and anticipation what is yet to come.
Sharon Weil
Shame often causes me to hide my mistakes from others. But really, when I make a mistake, I should make it loud and clear, so I can see that it didn’t work as a strategy, and be able to make a course correction, either by myself or with the help of others.
Sharon Weil
Pleasure feels better than pain. Make the pursuit of pleasure your guide.
Sharon Weil
We often gain awareness through a baseline comparison between now and next.
Sharon Weil
Discovering that I was adopted redefined my entire world, but it taught me that who you are doesn't change.
DaShanne Stokes
Being denied their original birth certificates isn't just a problem for adoptees. It's a social problem, requiring social change.
DaShanne Stokes
Racist legacy laws and modern racist practices are all part of the same system, and it needs to be changed now.
DaShanne Stokes
Only by speaking out can we create lasting change. And that change begins with coming out.
DaShanne Stokes
Remember, this is your day and your world.
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Get off of my shoulders. The foundation has been laid, now its time for you to build on it and get to work.
Amelia Boynton Robinson
Pay equality is not going to happen because we scream and yell about it, it's going to happen when we start demandin
Susan Sarandon
So you’re the infamous Manal al-Sharif,” he said, eyeing me from behind his desk. “Aren’t you ashamed of what you did?”“Is driving a car something shameful?” I answered back.
Manal Al-Sharif
The Vatican won't prosecute pedophile priests but I decide I'm not ready for motherhood and it's condemnation for me? These are the same people that won't support national condom distribution that PREVENTS teenage pregnancy.
Sonya Renee Taylor
Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.
Audre Lorde
Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.
Gloria Steinem
Leaders who do not help the people must be replaced by the people.
DaShanne Stokes
We elected a man who knows how to build walls when we needed someone who knows how to build bridges.
DaShanne Stokes