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Quotes by Activist
"If you find yourself drawn to an event against all logic, go. The universe is telling you something."
49
"In the early 1940s, as a young teenager, I was utterly appalled by the racist and jingoist hysteria of the anti-Japanese propaganda. The Germans were evil, but treated with some respect: They were, after all, blond Aryan types, just like our imaginary self-image. Japanese were mere vermin, to be crushed like ants."
49
"I don't think you lead by pessimism and cynicism. I think you lead by optimism and enthusiasm and energy."
49
"When we did the sign outside, we did not do the cigarette or the mug of beer because it was going to be outside. I wasn't sure if the city would object."
49
"Woman's discontent increases in exact proportion to her development."
49
"The city of Memphis has demonstrated that neither character nor standing avails the Negro if he dares to protect himself against the white man or become his rival."
49
"Kennedy had been assassinated a month or so before. So we walked to the grave of John Kennedy and ended our walking symbolically at the Arlington National Cemetery."
49
"Pop culture shapes our ideas of what is normal and what our dreams can be and what our roles are. Politics, of course, decides how the power and the money in the country is distributed. Both are equally important, and each affects the other."
49
"And who is responsible for this appalling child slavery? Everyone."
49
"The existing principle of selfish interest and competition has been carried to its extreme point; and, in its progress, has isolated the heart of man, blunted the edge of his finest sensibilities, and annihilated all his most generous impulses and sympathies."
49
"A man with a rifle or a club can only be stopped by a person who defends himself with a rifle or a club. That's equality. If the United States government doesn't want you and me to have rifles, then take the rifles away from those racists. If they don't want you and me to use clubs, take the clubs away from the racists. If they don't want you and me to get violent, then stop the racists from being violent. Don't teach us non-violence!!!"
49
"If we do not believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we do not believe in it at all."
49
"The eye of genius has always a plaintive expression, and its natural language is pathos."
49
"When mankind first saw the necessity of government, it is probable that many had conceived the desire of ruling."
49
"It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous."
49
"Planning ahead is a measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for future generations, but the poor can plan ahead only a few weeks or days."
49
"Aging is not lost youth but a new stage of opportunity and strength."
49
"Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them."
49
"Long before all these divisions were opened between home and the road, betweens a woman's place and a man's world, humans followed the crops, the seasons, traveling with their families, our companions, animals, our tents. We built campfires and moved from place to place. This way of traveling is still in our cellular memory. Living things have evolved as travelers, Even migrating birds know that nature doesn't demand a choice between nesting and flight."
48
"So that the failures to pass a civil rights bill isn't because of Black Power, isn't because of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; it's not because of the rebellions that are occurring in the major cities."
48
"Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different."
48
"We like to engage in a normal publishing effort, which is to act in a responsible manner and make sure the material is not likely to harm anyone, that it is properly investigated by quality news organizations, and by lawyers and human rights groups and so on."
48
"The only dead bodies from marijuana are in the prisons and at the hands of the police. This is ridiculous."
48
"As skills and energy became more of a demand, people who didn't have skills just got left behind, got shuttled to the side. Education didn't keep up with their promise. Education didn't prepare them for this new world. Jobs went overseas."
48
"Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress."
48
"Well, we see an increasingly weaker labor movement as a result of the overall assault on the labor movement and as a result of the globalization of capital."
48
"Markets can't think about anything beyond about three months. This is very long-term for markets, which is why the important things in life have got to be taken outside of the marketplace."
48
"I ask the rights to pursue happiness by having a voice in that government to which I am accountable."
48
"Social Security is based on a principle. It's based on the principle that you care about other people. You care whether the widow across town, a disabled widow, is going to be able to have food to eat."
48
"When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be a lawyer. No one thought this was a good idea."
48
"There is no visible sign that the current politicians in the US are willing to see the need for change."
48
"Reformation, like education, is a journey, not a destination."
48
"You know, many people have called me, friends from the nationalist camp, revisionists and so on, from around the world, have called me over the years - and now again because of what happened - and they are all very cynical about the police and the authorities."
48
"The czar was always sending us commands - you shall not do this and you shall not do that - till there was very little left that we might do, except pay tribute and die."
48
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