#activism

The path towards peace is not for the righteous, the ethical, the active and the compassionate to shit on the malicious, the complacent, the violent and the ignorant. The path towards peace is to be peaceful. ↗

— Ilyas Kassam

#change #compassion #meditation #peace #peaceful

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. ↗

— Robert Graves

#apocalypse #change #poets #protest #change

If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren't pessimistic, you don't have the correct data. If you meet people in this unnamed movement and aren't optimistic, you haven't got a heart. ↗

— Paul Hawken

#climate-change #science #social-justice #change

What Friedan gave to the world was, "the problem that has no name." She not only named it but dissected it. The advances of science, the development of labor-saving appliances, the development of the suburbs: all had come together to offer women in the 1950s a life their mothers had scarcely dreamed of, free from rampant disease, onerous drudgery, noxious city streets. But the green lawns and big corner lots were isolating, the housework seemed to expand to fill the time available, and polio and smallpox were replaced by depression and alcoholism. All that was covered up in a kitchen conspiracy of denial... [i]nstead the problem was with the mystique of waxed floors and perfectly applied lipstick. ↗

— Betty Friedan

#feminism #dreams

The greatest mistake of the movement has been trying to organize a sleeping people around specific goals. You have to wake the people up first, then you'll get action. ↗

— Malcolm X

#awareness #change #education #knowledge #revolution

Violence never really deals with the basic evil of the situation. Violence may murder the murderer, but it doesn’t murder murder. Violence may murder the liar, but it doesn’t murder lie; it doesn’t establish truth. Violence may even murder the dishonest man, but it doesn’t murder dishonesty. Violence may go to the point of murdering the hater, but it doesn’t murder hate. It may increase hate. It is always a descending spiral leading nowhere. This is the ultimate weakness of violence: It multiplies evil and violence in the universe. It doesn’t solve any problems. ↗

— Martin Luther King Jr.

#civil-rights-movement #equal-rights #martin-luther-king-jr #reform #violence

[A]lthough the principle of equality has always been self-evident, it has never been self-executing. ↗

— Barack Obama

#activism #civil-rights #equality #equality

A critical element in nearly all effective social movements is leadership. For it is through smart, persistent, and authoritative leaders that a movement generates the appropriate concepts and language that captures the frustration, anger, or fear of the group's members and places responsibility where it is warranted. ↗

— David E. Wilkins

#hank-adams #leadership #social-movements #anger

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. ↗

— E.B. White

#humor #life #pleasure #humor

There is absolutely no greater high than challenging the power structure as a nobody, giving it your all, and winning! ↗

— Abbie Hoffman

#dissent #inspiration #protest #success #inspirational