Social Activism Quotes

• One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Inspirational, Change, Sleep

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• One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  People, Political, Challenging The Status Quo

  Methodist Student Leadership Conference Address, delivered 1964, Lincoln, Nebraska

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• World conditions challenge us to look beyond the status quo for responses to the pain of our times. We look to powers within as well as powers without. A new, spiritually based social activism is beginning to assert itself. It stems not from hating what is wrong and trying to fight it, but from loving what could be and making the commitment to bring it forth.

  Marianne Williamson

  Pain, Hate, Commitment

  Marianne Williamson (2014). “Healing the Soul of America: Reclaiming Our Voices as Spiritual Citizens”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

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• Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Sad, Business, Lying

  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (2012). “A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings”, p.37, Beacon Press

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• Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.

  Jane Addams

  Inspirational, Peace, Reality

  Jane Addams, Jean Bethke Elshtain (2002). “The Jane Addams Reader”, p.316, Basic Books

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• It is my feeling that as we grow older we should become not less radical but more so. I do not, of course, mean this in any political-party sense, but rather in a willingness to struggle for those things in which we passionately believe. Social activism and the struggle for social justice are often thought of as the natural activities of the young but not of the middle-aged or the elderly. In fact, I don't think this was ever true.

  Margaret Laurence

  Party, Believe, Struggle

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• My ministry's always been one of social activism. I think a responsible minister must be at some levels involved in the social order.

  Al Sharpton

  Thinking, Order, Ministry

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• From spiritual connection springs kindness, connection, social activism, and love.

  Dani Shapiro

  Spiritual, Kindness, Spring

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• Jack Geiger, for example, was a leader of that movement. He was part of Physicians for Social Responsibility, which was kind of one of the ways that I worked my way into social activism in medicine.

  Jill Stein

  Responsibility, Medicine, Leader

  "Off Message" with Glenn Thrush, www.politico.com. September 19, 2016.

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• Social activism has gone mainstream. A new generation of philanthropic leaders such as Bill and Melinda Gates, and Bono are providing inspiration, guidance, and billions of dollars through their global foundations.

  Willow Bay

  Inspiration, Leader, Dollars

  "Living Now Gets a Makeover: Check Out Our New How-To Guide for a Fuller Life" by Willow Bay, www.huffingtonpost.com. September 17, 2007.

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• The Body Shop Foundation is run by our staff and supports social activism and environmental activism. We don't tend to support big agencies.

  Anita Roddick

  Running, Agency, Support

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• I think it needs to be with a heart-based wisdom and this heart-based wisdom needs to go hand in hand with science and with social activism and love for our planet and love for our whole human family that spans the whole globe and this may sound very high and mighty or airy-fairy, but it's going to have to go to that or else we're just all going to destroy each other.

  Rainn Wilson

  Heart, Thinking, Hands

  Interview with David Hirschman, bigthink.com. November 11, 2010.

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• Developing compassion for Congress and politicians is a good way to begin practicing the new social activism if you want to make effective changes in the world. Perhaps the most startling new insight of all is that there is no other way to effectively change the world.

  Gary Zukav

  Compassion, World, Want

  "Compassion and Congress" by Gary Zukav, www.huffingtonpost.com. August 7, 2011.

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• For the progressive left, social activism grounded in faith and theology crested in the 1960s.

  Mike McCurry

  Progressive, Theology, 1960s

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• Eleanor Roosevelt had both her admirers and her detractors. And they admired her and detracted from her for many of the same reasons. People who liked her social activism, who thought that she was calling attention to problems that needed solving, were all for her.

  William A. Rusher

  People, Attention, Calling

  Source: www.pbs.org

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