Quotes about Activism

War is not the opposite of peace - it is the absence of peace

A bird knows no barbed wire

I've heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they're afraid that without them they wouldn't be activists for peace. “If I feel peaceful,” they say, “why would I bother taking action at all?”
 
My answer is “Because that's what love does.”  To think that we need sadness or outrage to motivate us to do what's right is insane. As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become. As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day wiith drool running down her chin.

My experience is the opposite.

Love is action.

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."

The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.

"Sacred Activism is the fusion of the mystic's passion for God with the activist's passion for justice, creating a third fire, which is the burning sacred heart that longs to help, preserve, and nurture every living thing."

if you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends, you talk to your enemies.

Since periods of great change, such as the present one, come so rarely in human history, it is up to each of us to make the best use of our time to help create a happier world.

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

Don't agonize, organize.

Don’t let complexity stop you. Be activists. Take on the big inequities. It will be one of the great experiences of your lives.

"Don't do nothing because you can't do everything.  Do something.  Anything."

"I am leaving this legacy to all of you ... to bring peace, justice, equality, love and a fulfillment of what our lives should be. Without vision, the people will perish, and without courage and inspiration, dreams will die-- the dream of freedom and peace.

Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.

How dull is it to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life.

The will to act is a renewable resource.

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement, seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.

People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing that's why we recommend it daily.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against. (Christina Baldwin, American spiritual writer)

If you're not giving the world the best you have, what world are you saving it for ? (Kent Keith, American author, born 1949)

People may doubt what you say, but they will believe what you do. (Lewis Cass, governor of Michigan, 1782-1866)

Words and thoughts concerning compassionate action that are not put into practice are like beautiful flowers that are colorful but have no fragrance.

My activism really is for myself, because I see places in the world where I feel I should be.  If there is something really bad, really evil, happening somewhere, then that is where I should be.  I need, for myself, to feel that I have stood there.  It feels a lot better than just watching it on television.

A concern of some new meditators is that a peaceful heart doesn't allow for taking a stand, or acting decisively against injustice. This is particularly true for Jews, for whom the prophetic vision of social justice is a corner stone of religious practice. My father, for instance, thought that a peaceful heart preculded forceful action. he used to say, " I nned my anger. It obliges me to take action." I thin kmy father was partly right. Anger arises, naturally, to signal disturbing situations that might require action. But actions initiated in anger perpetuate suffering. The most effective actions are thoase conceived in the wisdom of clarity.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.