Quotes by Human Rights Activists

Freedom means choosing your burden.
Hephzibah Menuhin
There may be ways in which we can work for change. We don't have to do dramatic things or devote our entire lives to it. We can lead normal lives but at the same time try hard not to be bystanders.
Helen Bamber
Under the broken promises of superpowers and under the worlds indifference to spilled Arab blood.
Susan Abulhawa
Jesus beckons me to follow him to that place of weakness where I risk the vulnerability of a child so that I might know how strong my Father is and how much he loves me. But truth be told, I would rather be an adult. I'd rather be in a place where I can still pull things together if God doesn't show up, where I risk no ultimate humiliation, where I don't have to take the shallow breaths of desperation. And as a result, my experience of my heavenly Father is simply impoverished.
Gary Haugen
Would words shatter the immensity of life and death so close to one another?
Susan Abulhawa
Patriotism is a villain's last refuge.
Xiaobo Liu
My squad is my family, my gun is my provider, and protector, and my rule is to kill or be killed.
Ishmael Beah
The sun's brightness painted our shadows on the ground.
Ishmael Beah
The soldiers in my life had raised the bar for bad guys.
Susan Abulhawa
We must strive to be like the moon.' An old man in Kabati repeated this sentence often... the adage served to remind people to always be on their best behavior and to be good to others. [S]he said that people complain when there is too much sun and it gets unbearably hot, and also when it rains too much or when it is cold. But, no one grumbles when the moon shines. Everyone becomes happy and appreciates the moon in their own special way. Children watch their shadows and play in its light, people gather at the square to tell stories and dance through the night. A lot of happy things happen when the moon shines. These are some of the reasons why we should want to be like the moon.
Ishmael Beah
As facing the sea reveals the skyand facing the sky reveals the seafacing my soul reveals your soul
Xiaobo Liu
I don't seek revenge because the karma bus always arrives on time.
Fuad Alakbarov
I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge and revenge will never come to an end...
Ishmael Beah
I recall Ghandi said ultimately all things devolve into the political, but I'd argue that all things devolve into pro-people and anti-people. And I can pose the question, which side are you on?
Stetson Kennedy
There is more than one way to be Kluxed, and we need to think about ourselves and the kind of people we elect into public office.
Stetson Kennedy
The bed sheet brigade is bad enough, but the real threat to Americans and human rights today is the plain clothes Klux in the halls of government and certain black-robed Klux on court benches.
Stetson Kennedy
Do you know, Mother, that Haj Salem was buried alive in his home? Does he tell you stories in heaven now? I wish I had had a chance to meet him. To see his toothless grin and touch his leathery skin. To beg him, as you did in your youth, for a story from our Palestine. He was over one hundred years old, Mother. To have lived so long, only to be crushed to death by a bulldozer. Is this what it means to be Palestinian?
Susan Abulhawa
Let the darkness transform into rockacross the wilderness of my memory
Xiaobo Liu
In the developed countries of the capitalist world, the mass media are beginning to become businesses, and huge businesses at that. The freedom of journalists is now becoming, in most cases, a very relative thing: it ends where the interests of the business begin... In socialist areas, it is enough to recall that the means of social communication are the monopoly of the party.
Hélder Câmara
If you're wrestling with some sort of decision, reflect for a moment and ask yourself, Am I being brave, or am I being safe? In the end, it depends on whether we think God can be trusted.
Gary Haugen
The fact is, when people choose to be brave instead of smart, their courage is generally so threatening to those who are smart rather than brave that they end up being maligned, not congratulated. This is what the Bible says we can expect.
Gary Haugen
We must overturn so many idols, the idol of self first of all, so that we can be humble, and only from our humility can learn to be redeemers, can learn to work together in the way the world really needs. Liberation that raises a cry against others is no true liberation. Liberation that means revolutions of hate and violence and takes away lives of others or abases the dignity of others cannot be true liberty. True liberty does violence to self and, like Christ, who disregarded that he was sovereign becomes a slave to serve others.
Oscar A. Romero
We have never preached violence, except the violence of love, which left Christ nailed to a cross, the violence that we must each do to ourselves to overcome our selfishness and such cruel inequalities among us. The violence we preach is not the violence of the sword, the violence of hatred. It is the violence of love, of brotherhood,the violence that wills to beat weapons into sickles for work.
Oscar A. Romero
A church that does not provoke any crisis, preach a gospel that does not unsettle, proclaim a word of Godthat does not get under anyone's skin or a word of God that does not touch the real sin of the society in whichit is being proclaimed: what kind of gospel is that?
Oscar A. Romero
I grieved three thousand times. Then I grieved for myself, a lonely woman without the honor given to the wives of the fallen. The reverence for their loss, for their children's loss. It was eloquent and grand. So moving and charged with solidarity...On September eleventh, I faced the last moments of your father's life. I saw him in every person who tried to jump and every body they pulled from the rubble. And I saw myself as I was never allowed to be, consoled, understood, and loved.
Susan Abulhawa
Children played guessing games, telling each other whether the gun fired was and AK-47, a G3, an RPG, or a machine gun.
Ishmael Beah
Death, in its certainty, is exacting its due respect and repose before it takes my hand.
Susan Abulhawa
I feel sad for him. Sad for the boy bound to the killer. I am sad for the youth betrayed by their leaders for symbols and flags and war and power.
Susan Abulhawa
Justice is doing for others what we would want done for us.
Gary Haugen
Israeli occupation exposes us very young to the extremes of our emotions, until we cannot feel except in the extreme.
Susan Abulhawa
Amal,I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow, parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell.
Susan Abulhawa
One of the unsettling things about my journey, mentally, physically, and emotionally, was that I wasn’t sure when or where it was going to end. I didn’t know what I was going to do with my life. I felt that I was starting over and over again. I was always on the move, always going somewhere. While we walked, I sometimes lagged behind, thinking about these things. To survive each passing day was my goal in life. At villages where we managed to find some happiness by being treated to food or fresh water, I knew that it was temporary and that we were only passing through. So I couldn’t bring myself to be completely happy. It was much easier to be sad than to go back and forth between emotions, and this gave me the determination I needed to keep moving. I was never disappointed, since I always expected the worst to happen. There were nights when I couldn’t sleep but stared into the darkest night until my eyes could see clearly through it. I thought about where my family was and whether they were alive.
Ishmael Beah
You and I are the remains of an unfulfilled legacy, heirs to a kingdom of stolen identities and ragged confusion.
Susan Abulhawa
I am always quiet so that I know what to say when I must speak.
Ishmael Beah
Sometimes I closed my eyes hard to avoid thinking, but the eye of the mind refused to be closed and continued to plague me with images.
Ishmael Beah
Always" is a good word to believe in.
Susan Abulhawa
I know she is crying. Her tears fall on the wrong side, into the bottomless well inside her.
Susan Abulhawa
We took a bowl each and started eating. He went back into the little room, and by the time he returned to the table with his own bowl of food to eat with us, we had already finished. He was shocked and looked around to see if we had done something else with the food.
Ishmael Beah
I was so happy that my mother, father, and two brothers had somehow found one another. Perhaps my mother and father have gotten back together, I thought.
Ishmael Beah
I am six years old and instead of celebrating with birthday cakes, I chew on a piece of charcoal.
Loung Ung
I think how the world is still somehow beautiful even when I feel no joy at being alive within it.
Loung Ung
Thank you,’ I answered, unsure of the proper American response to her gracious enthusiasm. In the Arab world, gratitude is a language unto itself. “May Allah bless the hands that give me this gift”; “Beauty is in the eyes that find me pretty”; “May Allah never deny your prayer”; and so on, an infinite string of prayerful appreciation. Coming from such a culture, I have always found a mere “thank you” an insufficient expression that makes my voice sound miserly and ungrateful.” (169).
Susan Abulhawa
How fate is stubborn and holds to habit.
Susan Abulhawa
Who can ever know what path to walk on when all of them are either crooked or broken? One just has to walk.
Ishmael Beah
I don't feel like I can change the world. I don't even try. I only want to change this small life that I see standing in front of me, which is suffering.
Somaly Mam
I was afraid to fall asleep, but staying awake also brought back painful memories. Memories I sometimes wish I could wash away, even though I am aware that they are an important part of what my life is; who I am now. I stayed up all night, anxiously waiting for daylight, so that I could fully return to my new life, to rediscover happiness I had known as a child, the joy that had stayed alive inside me even through times when being alive itself became a burden. These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past.
Ishmael Beah
She was eight years old, with the body of a child, but her spirit was weighed down by an adult suffering.
Somaly Mam
So let us recognise our shame and guilt; let us ache with self-reflection; let us eradicate the repetition of suffering and resist anger; let us learn to concretely tend to the suffering of an individual, of our common citizens, with equality; let us learn to live life with honour and dignity and a wealth of humanity.
Xiaobo Liu
I was sad to leave, but I was also pleased to have met people outside of Sierra Leone. Because if I was to get killed upon my return, I knew that a memory of my existence was alive somewhere in the world.
Ishmael Beah
When we are dreaming alone it is only a dream. When we are dreaming with others, it is the beginning of reality.
Hélder Câmara
My squad was my family, my gun was my provider and protector, and my rule was to kill or be killed. The extent of my thoughts didn’t go much beyond that. We had been fighting for over two years, and killing had become a daily activity. I felt no pity for anyone.
Ishmael Beah
I strongly believe that love is the answer and that it can mend even the deepest unseen wounds. Love can heal, love can console, love can strengthen, and yes, love can make change.
Somaly Mam
I loved her in spite of myself. I loved her immeasurably.Infinitely. And I feared that love as much as I feared my own fury at theworld.
Susan Abulhawa
She loved beyond measure, When I was young I thought her cold. But in time I came to understand that she was too tender for the world she’d been born into,” I said. Sorrow gave Dalia an iron gift. Behind that hard shelter, sheloved boundlessly in the distance and privacy of her solitude, safe fromthe tragic rains of her fate.
Susan Abulhawa
the reverse side of love is unbearable loss.
Susan Abulhawa
Some people tried to hurt us to protect themselves, their family and communities...This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and every stranger became an enemy. Even people who knew you became extremely careful about how they related or spoke to you.
Ishmael Beah
Mother Teresa said that she couldn't imagine doing her work for more than thirty minutes without prayer. Do you and I have work that we can't imagine doing for thirty minutes without prayer?
Gary Haugen
The branches of the trees looked as if they were holding hands and bowing their heads in prayer.
Ishmael Beah
It isn't about knowing the most stories, child. It is about carrying the ones that are most important and passing them along.
Ishmael Beah
God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. And so today's church more than ever is accentuating the idea of being a people. The church therefore experiences conflicts, because it does not want a mass; it wants a people. A mass is a heap of persons, the drowsier the better, the more compliant the better. The church rejects communism's slander that it is the opium of the people. It has no intention of being the people's opium. Those that create drowsy masses are others. The church wants to rouse men and women to the true meaning of being a people. What is a people? A people is a community of persons where all cooperate for the common good.
Oscar A. Romero