Best 112 quotes of John Lewis on MyQuotes

As a young child, it became crystal clear to me that there were certain rights and privileges that other people had that my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great grandparents didn't have - that it was an ongoing struggle to realize the dream of the 14th and 15th Amendment.

Be prepared to organize nonviolent workshops - a teach-in around what is happening in America today. Organize your teachers and schoolmates, and be prepared to engage in some action.

DNI director [James] Clapper said as much many, many times, that there is no evidence that any outcome of the election was changed.

Do I think Russians supported [Donald Trump]? Do I think they tried to get him elected? Do I think it worked against Clinton? I do. And that is something that has to be investigated.

Donald Trump has made it clear that certainly over the last few years that President [Barack] Obama was born in Hawaii.

[Donald Trump] is not going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

[Donald Trump's inauguration] will be the first one that I miss since I've been in Congress. You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right.

Do we do away with protecting of the American people with pre - to make sure that if you have an illness you can get insurance? Do we make sure that young people stay on their parents' health insurance? Do we make sure that there are no caps if you're dealing with cancer and you deal with preexisting conditions? It goes without saying that those patient protections have got to stay in place.

Every American has got to recognize, we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people. We pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs because the pharmacy, the pharmaceutical industry is out of control ripping us off.

First time I got arrested, I knew somehow and some way, we would succeed. To go on the Freedom Ride to be beaten and left bloody and unconscious, to be beaten on that bridge in Selma, have a concussion - I thought that I was going to die on that bridge. But somehow and some way, I lived to tell about what happened, and I've seen some of the fruits of the labor of so many people, and people must understand that.

For a person [like John Lewis] that is a champion of voter rights to question whether or not Donald Trump legitimately won an election or not is an incredible position to take five days before an inauguration.

I believe it is my obligation to tell the story of the civil rights movement to the next generation.

I believe that teachers - whether in elementary schools, at the secondary level, or at colleges and universities - every teacher deserves the Nobel Peace Prize just for maintaining order in our schools!

I can tell just from working closely for the last year an half with president-elect [Donald Trump] and even over the course of the last six weeks, he has no problem with differing opinions in a room.

I don't have any extraordinary gifts. I'm just an average Joe who grew up very poor in rural Alabama.

If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about.'

If we must grind up human flesh and bones in the industrial machine that we call modern America, then, before God, I assert that those who consume the coal and you and I who benefit from that service, because we live in comfort, we owe protection to those men first and we owe security for their families if they die.

I happen to believe that this election year [2016] is...one of the most important elections that we're going to face in a very long time. I know we hear from time to time that every election is important. This one is very, very important.

I have fought too hard and for too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. I've heard the reasons for opposing civil marriage for same-sex couples. Cut through the distractions, and they stink of the same fear, hatred and intolerance I have known in racism and in bigotry.

I heard Dr. King speaking on the radio, and it seemed like he was saying, "John Robert Lewis, you too can make a contribution. You can get involved!

I heard of Martin Luther King Jr. when I was 15 years old. I heard of Rosa Parks. And I met Dr. King in 1958 at the age of 18. I met Rosa Parks ... But to pick up a fun comic book - some people used to call them "funny books" - to pick this little book up, it sold for 10 cents, 12 pages or 14 pages? 14 pages I digested. And it inspired me. And I said to myself, "If the people of Montgomery can do this, maybe I can do something. Maybe I can make a contribution.

In the past the great majority of minority voters, in Ohio and other places that means African American voters, cast a large percentage of their votes during the early voting process.

I remember being at the church a few hours after the church was bombed in Birmingham, the 16th Street Baptist Church. It was very hard and very difficult to stand on that corner across the street from the church. Or to go Mississippi and search for the three civil rights workers who came up missing. There is a lot of trauma.

I say to people today, 'You must be prepared if you believe in something. If you believe in something, you have to go for it. As individuals, we may not live to see the end.

I think all Americans should be hopeful, and try to be optimistic.

I think all three of those men [James Mattis, Mike Pompeo and Rex Tillerson] that you just mentioned, depending on what deal was struck with Russia, depending on what terms the deal would have and what incremental steps we would have to take and measurements that we would have to take with potentially Russia in a deal, some of those positions could change, and some of President-elect Donald Trump's positions could change depending on what deal could be struck.

I think Donald Trump is dividing the American people. He is not good for America. It's not good for our standing in the rest of the world. To divide people based on race, a color, a religion, a sexual orientation, it's just ... it's just wrong.

I think [Donald Trump] is going to be inaugurated this week. I have great concerns, and apparently Republicans do as well, and there's going to be an investigation about the role that Russian hacking played in getting him elected.

I think, in fact, I think President [Barack] Obama could step up.

I think it is a must for young people and generations yet to come, to understand, to feel, to touch, to almost smell the drama of what happened a few short years ago [the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s]. So maybe, just maybe, we will never ever repeat this unbelievable time in our history. We have to tell it all, and make it plain, and make it clear, so people will never ever forget the distance we have come, and the progress we have yet to make.

I think it is an imperfect arms control agreement. It's not a friendship treaty. But when America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.

I think [James Comey] should take a hard look at what he has done. And I think it would not be a bad thing for the American people if he did step down.

I think putting the United States down across the world is not something that a responsible person does.

I think right now, the focus has got to be on how we hold [Donald] Trump accountable.

I think that [James] Comey acted in an outrageous way during the [presidential ] campaign [in 2016].

I think the administration can do a lot of good by telling folks that are on their side of the aisle, look, we may have lost the election on the Democrat side, but it's time to come together.

It is interesting that [James Comey] is not doing investigations about the possible - possible ties between [Donald] Trump's campaign and the Russians.

It is our hope that when people read "March" - Book One, Book Two, and Book Three - that they will understand that another generation of people, especially young people, were deeply inspired by the work of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and many others.

It's going to be very difficult. I don't see the president-elect [Donald Trump] as a legitimate president.

I want [Donald] Trump to send out a tweet saying that he's going to keep his campaign promises.

I've said it in the past and I'll say it again today: the vote is precious; it's almost sacred.

I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956 with my brothers and sisters and first cousins, I was only 16 years old, we went down to the public library trying to check out some books and we were told by the librarian that the library was for whites only and not for colors! It was a public library! I never went back to that public library until July 5th, 1998, by this time I'm in the Congress, for a book signing of my book "Walking with the Wind

I would like to think that we have made much more progress, that we've come much further, to have someone like a Donald Trump to emerge as the nominee of a major political party.

I would say to a young person: continue to study. Study what is taking place in your community, in your neighborhood, maybe at your school.

John Lewis stood up and said in an interview that Donald Trump was not a legitimate president. It's insanity.

Many of us in Nashville accepted nonviolence as a way of life, a way of living, not simply as a technique or a tactic.

['March'] is a path you must take if you want to move from one point to another point. If you want to make it down this very long and troublesome road, follow this path. Follow this message. Follow this map. And you will get there some day.

My mother and father and many of my relatives had been sharecroppers.

My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble, not to make any noise.

Nobody thinks that Obamacare is perfect. It has its problems.