Best 433 quotes in «activism quotes» category

No anti-slavery crusader aimed for a partial solution or settled on a regimen of interim targets. The fight to end slavery was a fight to end 100 percent of slavery for all time. In just that way, we can't settle for partial measures if we are going to win the war for our world. We need to fight for 100 percent sustainability, now.

. . . no human being would wish to trade places with nonhuman animals in factory farms or laboratories. . . . The legal status of women and nonwhite racialized minorities has improved markedly in the past fifty years; matters have grown considerably worse for nonhuman animals.

No man voluntarily expresses his opinion without some intent to make a difference, and even if he does, he shouldn't.

No matter what our intentions, everything we say and do in the pursuit of justice will one day be outdated, ineffective, and yes, probably wrong. That is the way progress works. What we do now is important and helpful so long as what we do now is what is needed now.

None of us really has any idea how many lives we touch or what impact we have on those lives. In most cases, we will never get to see what difference we made, but living out loud isn’t about noticing the results. It is about doing what we came here to do, for no reason other than that it is our life purpose.

nonviolent action succeeds twice as often as violent means, in a third of the amount of time, and with a fraction of the casualties.

nonviolence worked not because it melted the heart of the oppressor, but because people seized their social, political, and economic power, and refused to let business-as-usual continue until their demands were met.

Not only do we harbor patriarchal indifference to uniquely female suffering, but additionally, most of us are ignorant of the horrible cruelty inherent in factory farming. It is easy to buy a bucket of chicken or a carton of vanilla yogurt without even knowing about the females whose sad lives lie behind these unnecessary products. It is easy to forget that mozzarella and cream come from a mother’s munificence—mothers who would have desperately preferred to tend their young, and to live out their lives with a measure of freedom and comfort—or not to be born at all. Most consumers are unaware of the ongoing, intense suffering and billions of premature deaths that lurk behind mayonnaise and cream, cold cuts and egg sandwiches. Even with the onset of contemporary animal advocacy, and the unavoidability of at least some knowledge of what goes on in slaughterhouses and on factory farms, most of us choose to look away—even feminists. Collectively, feminists remain largely unaware of the well-documented links between the exploitation of women and girls, and the exploitation of cows, sows, and hens.

Obviously these are some exceptional young people, but what they have in common is that they were ordinary people who cared. They wanted to act, to do something, to make life better for other people—and they have.

One of the most astounding and telling features of the Women's March and the #MeToo movement is that they both illustrate how many angry women it takes to generate public response.

One problem for the student of color is the feeling that if she is silent about a piece of writing that is racially problematic or insensitive or simply racist , she will be condoning such writing. Moreover, the student may believe that to be silent is to be a coward. At the same time, if the student of color persists in her critiques she will be increasingly attacked and begin to feel isolated and powerless. The student may feel then that to persist with her critiques is an attempt to maintain or regain power. But Sun Tzu teaches that to retreat or lay low in times when one does not have power or sufficient number is not weakness; it is wisdom. Sun Tzu teaches that taking time to build allies and gather forces is not weakness, but wisdom. ... Or as I wrote to one such student, being an activist artist is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Artists need to plan and strategize and build their forces for the larger battles to come, to fight from strength not weakness.

On reflection, most of us recognize that we would rather protect citizens than corporations—human rights rather than corporate capitalism. On reflection, most of us recognize that anymal advocates who defend life against exploitative industries hold the high moral ground—their compassionate motivation and social justice actions are supported by core teachings in every major religion. Anymal liberationists demonstrate self-sacrificing service on behalf of the exploited. They risk long-term imprisonment on behalf of the defenseless and downtrodden, the maimed and condemned. Those who take core religious teachings seriously will respect anymal liberationists because these dedicated activists treasure life above property and profits, and risk their freedom on behalf of those who cannot help themselves. Anymal liberationists exemplify religious commitment in action, most notably compassionate, self-sacrificing service to those who are most in need.

Or perhaps it's "activist," but on environmental and economic problems, without understanding that pressuring women to have too many children is the biggest cause of environmental distress, and economic courses should start with reproduction, not just production.

Our ailing planet needs spiritual warriors, ones capable of standing up to the Western materialism machine, so we can create sustainable societies that care for their citizens, harmonize with the cycles of nature, and receive and honor the vast healing light that quietly connects us all.

Our democracy is threatened whenever we take it for granted.

One of the most important skills we can develop for collapse is the capacity to listen.

One of the most useful skills advocates can develop is a sincere satisfaction in changing their mind, putting the goal of effectiveness before the goal of having been correct.

Our minds must be as ready to move as capital is, to trace its paths and to imagine alternative destinations.

Our world needs more love, more acceptance, more generosity, more compassion. Justice is a struggle. Don't be disheartened. Don't give up.

Pain makes people warriors, you just have to hurt enough!

People don't move into action because of statistics. They move because of their hearts. We're hardwired with empathy neurons, billions of them, and human beings are evolutionarily programmed to help one another.

Oppressions are linked. We cannot free human beings without freeing cows, sows, and hens along with women and men who are systematically oppressed by those in power. Rather than seek to fight our way up the patriarchal ladder, those working for social justice need to dismantle hierarchies, and cease to exploit all those who are less powerful—even if we must give up a few culinary favorites in the process . . . . Each of us decides, over the course of our daily lives, whether we will ignore the suffering of nonhuman animals . . . . We choose where our money goes, and in the process, we choose whether to boycott cruelty and support change, or melt ambiguously back into the masses.

Pay equality is not going to happen because we scream and yell about it, it's going to happen when we start demanding it." (On Beauty: Susan Sarandon, Vogue, January 8, 2016)

Please your mother: just lie around upstairs and smoke some pot. Be a revolutionary.

Poésie, philosophie et théologie naissent de l'affrontement lucide à l'injustifiable qu'aucune action ne saurait définitivement éliminer.

Poetry wakes us up

Poets can't march in protest or do that sort of thing. I feel that's against the rules, and pointless. If mankind wants a great big final bang, that's what it'll get. One should never protest against anything unless it's going to have an effect. None of those marches do. One should either be silent or go straight to the top.

Resistance is singing your grandmother's songs so the next generation will know them.

Our individual power to effect change may not seem like much, but remember, we are all interconnected: We are One. Powerlessness itself is an illusion. Every positive action we take, no matter how small, will have an impact.

Our intellectual habit is to find the One Cause, our scientific programming is to measure it, and our political gearing is to attack it. When the One Cause is global, we cross our fingers and hand over responsibility and power to distant global institutions. They'll take care of it. We hope. But too often, blaming climate change means not doing anything at all.

Punishment is not something inflicted by the good upon the bad, but rather by the powerful upon the powerless.

Resistance is more than a battle; it is the indomitable presence of life against forces of destruction.

Respecting the humanity of our opposition - who are our fellow citizens whether we approve of their actions or not - requires a depth of fearlessness far beyond the tactics of dehumanization and attacking.

Reuse is the original green collar job.

Roots, he wrote, symbolize more than underground strong-arms. Roots are also origins, the tendrils of a sprouting seed that give rise to life.

Sadly, we live in a world where if you do good things, there are no financial rewards. If you poison the earth, there is a fortune to be made.

She is of the race of Jeanne d’Arc, this Northern girl, in her voice, her bearing, her beliefs. That kind if not to be possessed by one man; she belongs to a cause, to the people.

She was not stunned, the way I was. In some strange way she was gleeful, as if this was what she had been expecting for some time and now she'd been proven right.

Social justice activists in general, and animal advocates in particular, must work to expose the injustices they have learned to see . . . . To correct social problems, we must expose them to the light of day.

...she was something more- a force, a stable, familiar force like something out of my past which kept me from whirling off into some unknown which I dared not face. It was a most painful position for at the same time Mary reminded me constantly that something was expected of me, some act of leadership, some newsworthy achievement;...

Silence of dissent creates change at the behest of those who do not stay silent.

So I think that a protest,' she went on, 'like a work of dance or a work of music, is something done, at least in part, by the protestor for the protestor.' She saw I was about to interrupt so said, 'One more minute. Let me explain. Of course one hopes and plans for impact, for audience, for change, for efficacy. But, like dance, like music, a protest can be a religious ritual too, one that needn't be derisively looked down upon as magical thinking, but a spiritual act where the act itself is the goal. And that act may on some level be co-opted, but in the subjective world of the protestor it is a way, in itself, to be. Even in solipsism, the subject can be moral. You can call it hokum if you wish, but for the protestor, the protest makes a moral world in which she can abide.

Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible.

Still, it becomes clearer every day that organizing or joining massive protests and demanding new policies fail to sufficiently address the crisis we face. They may demonstrate that we are on the right side politically, but they are not transformative enough. They do not change the cultural images or the symbols that play such a pivotal role in molding us into who we are.

Songs are dangerous, songs are subversive and can change your life.

So often our power lies not in ourselves, but in how we help others find their own strength.

Stop listening to the TV tell you about America the beautiful . . . get up and be America the beautiful.

Stories migrate secretly. The assumption that whatever we now believe is just common sense, or what we always knew, is a way to save face. It's also a way to forget the power of a story and of a storyteller, the power in the margins, and the potential for change.

Political issues are too serious to be left only to politicians.

Static people love to compensate for their inability to change themselves by always trying to change the world.