Activism, Inspiration, Dissent Quotes

 Words I Try to Live By:

• The most revolutionary act one can engage in . . . is to tell the truth. ~Howard Zinn, Marx on Soho: A Play on History 

• I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. ~ Jeanie Ashley Bates Greenough

(Alternate version and credit) I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. ~ Edward Everett Hale 1822-1909

• If I were to remain silent, I'd be guilty of complicity.” ~ Albert Einstein

• A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was,  how big my house was, or what kind of car I drove; But the world may be a little better, because I was important in the life of a child. ~ Forest E. Witcraft 

• Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because his conscience tells him that it is right. ~ Martin Luther King

• All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. ~ Edmond Burke

• I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. ~ Elie Wiesel, Nobel Price for Peace, 1986

• Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing. ~ Aristotle

• The most human thing we have to do in life is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences. ~ Father William DuBay

• Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and...they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called "cantankerous", "crazy", "hysterical", "uppity", or "duped". Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement. ~ Carol Travis

• Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile I caught hell for. ~ Chief Justice Earl Warren

• A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

• I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed. ~ Booker T. Washington

To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

-->

Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. ~ Malala Yousafzai

Inspirational Quotations

•    Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.  Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.  ~ William Faulkner

• The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who are watching and do nothing. ~ Albert Einstein
• 
  
• We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance. ~ Maya Angelou

•    It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference. ~Tom Brokaw

•    You cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. ~ R. Tagore

•    Fearlessness in those without power is maddening to those who have it. ~ Tobias Wolff

•    When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it - always. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

•    I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do. ~ Edward Everett Hale

•    I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. ~ Henry David Thoreau

•   The truth is incontrovertible; malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but int he end, there it is. ~ Winston Churchill

•   No one knows what he can do till he tries. ~ Publilius Syrus

•    There is only one thing more powerful than all the armies of the world, that is an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo

•    Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic. ~ Dave Barry

•    Change starts when someone sees the next step. ~William Drayton

•    One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works. ~ Meister Eckhart

•    I would not waste my time on friction, when it could be turned into momentum. ~ Frances Willar

•    Hate is too great a burden to bear.  It injures the hater more than it injures the hated. ~ Coretta Scott King

•    The world in which you were born is just one model of reality. Other cultures are not failed attempts at being you. They are unique manifestations of the human spirit. ~ Wade Davis

•    The period of greatest gain in knowledge and experience is the most difficult period in ones life. - Dalai Lama

•    Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity. - Albert Einstein

•    If you want to see the brave, look at those who can forgive. ~ Bhagavad Gita

•    We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world. ~ Helen Keller

•    Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly. ~ Einstein

•    We can only be what we give ourselves the power to be. ~ A Cherokee Feast of Days

•    Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it. ~ Gandhi

•    Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

•    While we are postponing, life speeds by. ~ Seneca

•    What you can do, or dream, you can begin it;  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.  ~ Goethe

•    You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth. ~ Evan Esar

•    Don’t be too squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

•    Use what talent you posses; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. ~ Henry van Dyke

•    If a man does not have an ideal and try to live up to it, then he becomes a mean, base and sordid creature, no matter how successful. ~ Roosevelt, Letter to his son Kermit, quoted in Theodore Roosevelt by Joseph Bucklin Bishop, 1915

•    In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

•    How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good dead in a naughty world. ~ William Shakespeare

•    Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. ~ Auguste Rodin

•    To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your  sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows.  ~ Jean Anouilh

•    I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. ~John Cage

•    Imagination was given to us to compensate for what we are not; a sense of humor was given to us to console us for what we are. ~ Mark McGinnis

•    The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - We must step up the stairs.  ~ Vance Havner

•    All big things in this world are done by people who are naive and have an idea that is obviously impossible. ~ Dr. Frank Richards

•    When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. ~ John Ruskin

•    Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats. ~ Howard Aiken

•    Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

•    Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society.  The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. ~ Gil Stern

•    An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it. ~ William Bernbach

•    Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it. ~ Doug Larson

•    While intelligent people can often simplify the complex, a fool is more likely to complicate the simple. ~ Gerald W. Grumet, MD

•    As someone in Wonderland said to Alice, it's best to try to believe at least three impossible things before breakfast.

•    One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks. ~ Jack Penn

•    You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

•    In life, pain and suffering are inevitable; however, being miserable is optional. ~ Anon.

•    A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. ~ Jackie Robinson

•    Speak your mind - even if your voice shakes. Well-aimed slingshots can topple giants. ~ Maggie Kuhn, Gray Panthers

•    I am hurt, but I am not slain; I'll lay me down and bleed awhile,  And then I'll rise and fight again. ~ Sir Andrew Barton Ballad

•    May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. ~ Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

•    Most people are about as happy as they make up their mind to be. ~ Abraham Lincoln

•    Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. ~ Sydney J. Harris, 1917, American Journalist

•    As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. ~ Jesus

•    There is nothing good or bad in itself, but thinking makes it so.

•    Please subdue the anguish of your soul. Nobody is destined only to happiness or to pain. The wheel of life takes one up and down by turn. ~ Kalidasa, dramatist (c. 4th century)

•    Shoot for the moon,,,,,even if you miss it you will land among the stars. ~ Anon

•    We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. ~ Oscar Wilde

•    Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that.  Because what the world needs are people who have come alive. ~ Howard Thurman

•    When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. ~ Helen Keller

•    It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

•    No (one) is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

•    The challenge is to be yourself in a world that's trying to make you like everyone else. ~ Anon

•    And the time came when the risk it took to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. ~ Anais Nin

•    It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves. ~ Edmond Hillary

•    What you choose not to look at in your life rules your life. ~ Lynn Andrews

•    Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are. ~ John Wooden

•    Above all don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him or around him, and so he loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love, he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov

•    Genius is not the possession of knowledge. Genius is the ability to acquire knowledge. ~  Albert Einstein

•    The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. A life spent making mistakes is more useful than a life spent doing nothing. ~ George Bernard Shaw

•    When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it's time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things will happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly ~ Edward Teller

•    A passionately lived life is not always comfortable. Going for it involves being open to all of life - the joys, the sorrows, the mundane as well and the magic, the splendid victories, the most abject defeats.  ~ Nicholas Lore

•    If knowing answers to life's questions is absolutely necessary to you, then forget the journey. You will never make it, for this is a journey of unknowables--of unanswered questions, enigmas, incomprehensibles, and most of all, things unfair." ~ Madame Jeanne Guyon

•    Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. ~ Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)

•    Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who have found it. ~ Andre Gide

•    Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

•    Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace within the storm.

•    A woman is like a teabag.  You never know how strong she is until she gets into hot water.

•    By far the best proof is experience. ~ Francis Bacon

•    Separate reeds are weak and easily broken but bound together they are strong and hard to tear apart. ~ The Midrah

•    Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. ~ Soren Kieregaard

•    Do not look where you fell but where you slipped. ~ Liberian proverb

•    La unica lucha que se pierde es la que se abandona...
(The only battle you lose is the one you give up)

•    The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. ~ Maureen Dowd

•    Our Deepest FEAR . . .
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful   beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and
fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people will not feel insecure around you.
We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It isn't just some of us, it is everyone
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

•    One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain. ~ George Sand

•    It’s not about what God throws at you.  It’s about what you do with it. ~ Anon

•    Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.  ~ Swedish Proverb

•    The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

•    Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art. ~ Anon

•    Live simply so that others may simply live. ~ Anon

•    No matter what our attempts to inform, it is our ability to inspire that will turn the tides. ~Jan Phillips, Syracuse Cultural Workers

•    Learn from the mistakes of others.....You can't live long enough to make them all yourself. ~ Anon

•    There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.  ~ Martha Graham

•    The mind, once expanded to the dimension of a larger idea, never returns to its original size.  ~ Oliver W. Holmes

•    Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the action stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living. ~ Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

•    The most human thing we have to do in life is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences.  This is the first requirement of love, and it makes us vulnerable to other people who may ridicule us.  But our vulnerability is the only thing we can give to other people. ~ Father William DuBay

•    If I were to choose between pain and nothing, I would choose pain. ~  William Faulkner in Wild Palms

•    Change is the end result of all true learning.  Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self – a felt void or need; second, a decision to change – to fill the void of need, and; third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change – the willful act of making the change, doing something. ~ Leo Bascagla, Love

•    The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.  ~ John Ruskin

•    Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do.   Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.  ~ William Faulkner

•    Success is not to be measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed. ~ Booker T. Washington

•    You can look at a scar and see hurt, or you can look at a scar and see healing. ~ Sheri Reynol, A Gracious Plenty

• There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~ Edith Wharton 

• Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others. ~ Rosa Parks            
• Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you. ~ Walt Whitman

•  Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. ~ attributed to the Buddha

• I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.  ~Jimmy Dean
• 
  
• Let us remember: One book, one pen, one child, and one teacher can change the world. ~ Malala Yousafzai

• Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. ~ Francis of Assisi

• Your personal life, your professional life, and your creative life are all intertwined. I went through a few very difficult years where I felt like a failure. But it was actually really important for me to go through that. Struggle, for me, is the most inspirational thing in the world at the end of the day - as long as you treat it that way. ~ Skylar Grey

• Shoot for the moon and if you miss you will still be among the stars. ~Les Brown

-->
Activism and Dissent Quotations 

•    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~ Voltaire

•    You are not obliged to complete the task, neither are you free to neglect it. ~ Talmudic adage attributed to Pirke Avot, Sayings of the Fathers

•    The people are the only ones capable of transforming society. ~ Rigoberta Manchu

•    To believe in something and not live it, is dishonest. ~ Mahatma Gandhi

•     We each need to let our intuition guide us, and then be willing to follow that guidance directly and fearlessly. 
~ Shakti Gawain

•    If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. ~ Bishop Desmond Tutu

•    Fighting crime by building more jails is like fighting cancer by building more cemeteries. ~ Paul Kelly

•    The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do. ~ Samuel P. Huntington

•    Too see right and not do it is want of courage. ~ Confucius

•    The most human thing we have to do in life is to learn to speak our honest convictions and feelings and live with the consequences. ~ Father William DuBay

•    Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world.  Indeed it's the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead

•    When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons.  We cease to grow. ~ Asais Nin

•    A patriot must be ready to defend his country against his government. ~  Edward Abbey

•    The problems we face will not be solved by the minds that created them ~ Albert Einstein
 
•    Rebels and dissidents challenge the complacent belief in a just world, and...they are usually denigrated for their efforts. While they are alive, they may be called "cantankerous", "crazy", "hysterical", "uppity", or "duped". Dead, some of them become saints and heroes, the sterling characters of history. It's a matter of proportion. One angry rebel is crazy, three is a conspiracy, fifty is a movement.  ~ Carol Travis

•    The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not deter us from support of a cause we believe to be just. ~ A. Lincoln

•    The oppressed should rebel, and they will continue to rebel and raise disturbance until their civil rights are fully restored to them and all partial distinctions, exclusions and incapacitations are removed. ~ Thomas Jefferson, 1776

•    I never gave them hell.  I just told the truth and they thought it was hell. ~ H. Truman

•    To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but morally treasonable to the American public. ~ Theodore Roosevelt

•    First they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. ~ Gandhi

•    All that the evil forces need to win the world is for good men to do nothing.  ~ Edmund Burke

•    The hottest places on earth are reserved for those who in times of crisis, maintain their neutrality. ~ Dante

•    The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.  ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

•    Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. ~ Robert F. Kennedy

•    You must do the thing you think you cannot do.  ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

•    When anyone steps out of the system and tells the truth, lives the truth, that person enables everyone else to peer behind the curtain too.  ~ Walter Wink

•    We will either find a way, or we will make one.  ~ Hannibal 210 BC

•    Every great achievement was once considered impossible.  ~ H.J. Brown

•    Eem lo akhshav, matay? If not now, when? ~ Hillel

•    Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence....~ Albert Einstein

•    A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity. ~ Robert Frost

•    If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back and get it right-side up again. And now that they are asking to do it the men better let them. ~ Sojourner Truth, 1851

•    There are no passengers on spaceship earth.  We are all crew. ~ Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980)

•    Under communism man exploits man, under capitalism the reverse is true.

•    The only things that exists are atoms and opinions. ~ Democratis

•    The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. ~ Oscar Wilde

•    No man is justified in doing evil on the grounds of expediency. ~ Theodore Roosevelt, 'The Strenuous Life,' 1900

•    You always miss 100% the shots you don’t take. ~ Gretsky

•    It is the silent acquiescence of millions that supports the system.  When you don't oppose a system, your silence becomes approval, for it does nothing to interrupt the system...Many people say it is insane to resist the system, but actually, it is insane not to.  ~ Mumia Abu-Jamal

•    The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. ~ Noam Chomsky

•    Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people…it is true that most stupid people are conservatives. ~ John Stuart Mill

•    Life has taught me one supreme lesson.  This is that we must -- if we are really to live at all, if we are to enjoy the life more abundant promised by the Sages of Wisdom -- we must put our convictions into action. ~ Margaret Sanger

•    When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.  When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. ~ Dom Hleder Camara

•    Power concedes nothing without a demand.  It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue till they have resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress.  ~ Frederick Douglas

•    All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. ~ Schoepenhauer

•    Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect on your position. ~ Mark Twain

•    An error does not become truth by multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. ~ M.K. Ghandi

•    The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. ~ William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

•    Words form the thread on which we string our experiences. ~ Aldous Huxley, author and critic (1894-1963)

•    If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind. ~ John Stuart Mill, philosopher and economist (1806-1873)

•    By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest. ~ Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

•    Clay is molded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not. ~ Lao Tzu, philosopher (circa 600 BCE)

•    This society began with stolen labor on stolen land, which makes all such claims to a tradition of freedom, null and void. It must also be said, that democracy and slavery cannot exist side by side. Nor can democracy and capitalism for that matter. No class society, based on exploitation of the many to enrich a greedy few, can properly claim to be a democracy. ~ Ron Wilkins

•    So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world. ~ Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804)

•    ...We must see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together.... you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others.... the whole structure of American life must be changed.... ~Anon

•    The Seven Deadly Social Sins: Politics without Principle; Wealth without Work; Commerce without Morality; Pleasure without Conscience; Education without Character; Science Without Humanity; Worship without Sacrifice. ~ Gandhi

•    A human being is a part of the whole, called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest-a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty.  ~ Albert Einstein

"Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application....We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal..." to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany......

"...this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: ... the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice?"

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, 16 April 1963
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html

DISSENT:

•    It is dangerous to be right  when the government is wrong. ~ Voltair

• Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. ~ Thomas Jefferson
• The dissenter is every human being at those moments of his life when he resigns momentarily from the herd and thinks for himself. ~ Archibald Macleish
• No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots. ~ Barbara Ehrenreich
• Talent ... is most likely to be found among non-conformists, dissenters, and rebels. ~ David Ogilvy
• We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it. ~ Edward R. Murrow
• The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. ~ Eleanor Holmes Norton
• The beginning of thought is in disagreement -- not only with others but also with ourselves. ~ Eric Hoffer
• You've got to rattle your cage door. You've got to let them know that you're in there, and that you want out. Make noise. Cause trouble. You may not win right away, but you'll sure have a lot more fun. ~ Florynce Kennedy
• In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~ George Orwell
• In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith. ~ J. William Fulbright
• Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed -- and no republic can survive. ~ John F. Kennedy
• Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted. ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
• Non-cooperation is a measure of discipline and sacrifice, and it demands respect for the opposite views. ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi
• You do not become a "dissident" just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society. ~ Vaclav Havel
• Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. ~ William O. Douglas
• A possible dream stretches us; it calls for a deep and enduring commitment. A possible dream exposes us to the real risk of failure — the failure to do what we might have done, could have done and should have done.” ~ Excerpt from sermon "To Dream the Possible Dream” 
  By the Rev. Peter Morales 

Mirah Riben