INSPIRATION FOR ACTIVISTS
When you don’t feel like getting out of bed …
“I would get up in the morning and I would say, “How am I going to bother them today?” ~ Rigoberta Menchú Tum
“Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We cannot tire or give up. We owe it to the present and future generations of all species to rise up and walk!” ~ Wangari Maathai
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.” ~ Anne Lamott
When you are beginning a new project …
“Start with the impossible. Proceed calmly towards the improbable. No worry, there are at least five exits.” ~ Fr. Dan Berrigan
“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Do the thing and you will have the power.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~ Anne Frank
“You can pray until you faint, but unless you get up and try to do something, God is not going to put it in your lap.” ~ Fannie Lou Hamer
Go for it!
“The size of your dreams must always exceed your current capacity to achieve them. If your dreams do not scare you, they are not big enough.” ~ Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” ~ Helen Keller
“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.” ~ Emma Goldman
“Every daring attempt to make a great change in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.” ~ Emma Goldman
“Our dreams must be stronger than our memories.” ~ Jesse Jackson
“Our visions begin with our desires.” ~ Audre Lorde
“Justice is a dream. But it is a dream that we are determined to realize.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“Twenty years from now you will look back more regretfully upon the things you didn’t do than those you did. So set free the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor. Dream. Explore. Discover.” ~ Mark Twain
“Keep your feet on the ground and your thoughts at lofty heights.” ~ Peace Pilgrim
“You wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down.” ~ Toni Morrison
Don’t just sit there, do something! …
“Action is the antidote to despair.” ~ Joan Baez
“Worrying about the problems plaguing our planet without taking steps to confront them is absolutely irrelevant. The only thing that changes this world is taking action.” ~ Jody Williams
“Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” ~ Mother Jones
“I want to be around a really long time. I want to be a thorn in the side of everything as long as possible.” ~ Patti Smith
“Good is towing the line, being behaved, being quiet, being passive, fitting in, being liked … Great is being messy, having a belly, speaking your mind, standing up for what you believe in, fighting for another paradigm, not letting people talk you out of what you know to be true.” ~ Eve Ensler
“Revolution is not a onetime event.” ~ Audre Lorde
“Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.” ~ Susan B. Anthony
“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, want crops without plowing up the ground.” ~ Frederick Douglass
“Action indeed is the sole medium of expression for ethics.” ~ Jane Addams
“I pray every single second of my life; not on my knees, but with my work.” ~ Susan B. Anthony
“It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“We must know the difference between sweat and tears. Sweat is wet. Tears are wet. Sweat is salty. Tears are salty. But progress comes through sweat. Progress never came through tears.” ~ Jesse Jackson
“It’s so much easier to beat your breast than to stick your neck out.” ~ William Sloane Coffin
“Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven’t done a thing. You are just talking.” ~ Wangari Maathai
“If you rest, you rust.” ~ Helen Hayes
When only a few people show up …
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ~ Margaret Mead
“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“One of the greatest evils of the day is the sense of futility. Young people say, ‘What can one person do? What is the sense of our small effort?’ They cannot see that we can only lay one brick at a time; we can be responsible only for the one action of the present moment. But we can beg for an increase of love in our hearts that will vitalize and transform these actions and know that God will take them and multiply them, as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes.” ~ Dorothy Day
“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 that I can do.” ~ Helen Keller
Tweet-sized sayings about war and violence …
“Fighting for peace, is like f***ing for chastity.” ~ Stephen King
“A pacifist between wars is like a vegetarian between meals.” ~ Ammon Hennacy
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” ~ Isaac Asimov
“They have the guns. We have the poets. Therefore, we will win.” ~ Howard Zinn
“No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
“Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought.” ~ Helen Keller
“Killing more people won’t help matters.” ~ Jeanette Rankin
“Why do we kill people who are killing people to show that killing people is wrong?” ~ Holly Near
“Violent revolutions usually only mean a change of personnel at the top.” ~ Petra Kelly
“Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“War is the slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as possible.” ~ Jeanette Rankin
“Practically every violent conflict or social change has proved that violence unleashes violence in return.” ~ Petra Kelly
“There can be no compromise with war.” ~ Jeanette Rankin
“I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life.” ~ A. J. Muste
“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I went to jail for 11 days for disturbing the peace; I was trying to disturb the war.” ~ Joan Baez
When you’re told that nonviolence is passive, timid, narrow, and naive …
“The first principle of nonviolent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you — pull your beard, flick your face — to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don’t know how to handle is nonviolence and humor.” ~ John Lennon
“Gandhi once declared that it was his wife who unwittingly taught him the effectiveness of nonviolence. Who better than women should know that battles can be won without resorting to physical strength.” ~ Barbara Deming
“Time and time again we forget all too easily that nonviolent action embraces a wide and imaginative range of behavior which can always be stepped up.” ~ Petra Kelly
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The only thing that’s been a worse flop than the organization of nonviolence has been the organization of violence.” ~ Joan Baez
“It is better to resist oppression by violent means than to submit, but it is best of all to resist by nonviolent means.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Vengeance is not the point: change is.” ~ Barbara Deming
“There is no such thing as defeat in nonviolence.” ~ Cesar Chavez
“It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Our motto is, ‘Be gentle and subversive.’” ~ Petra Kelly
“Veganism is about nonviolence. It is about not engaging in harm to other sentient beings; to oneself; and to the environment upon which all beings depend for life. In my view, the animal rights movement is … an emerging peace movement that does not stop at the arbitrary line that separates humans from nonhumans.” ~ Gary L. Francione
Contemplating complexity, celebrating diversity …
“There is no such thing as single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” ~ Audre Lorde
“An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.” ~ Victor Hugo
“You must not deal only with the symptoms. You have to get to the root causes by promoting environmental rehabilitation and empowering people to do things for themselves. What is done for the people without involving them cannot be sustained.” ~ Wangari Maathai
“If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism — about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica.” ~ Danny Glover
“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~ Audre Lorde
“We must not only learn to tolerate our differences. We must welcome them as the richness and diversity which can lead to true intelligence.” ~ Albert Einstein
“There is nowhere you can go and only be with people who are like you. Give it up.” ~ Bernice Johnson Reagon
“Have you not learned the most in your life from those with whom you disagreed — those who saw it differently from you?” ~ Walt Whitman
“Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.” ~ Dalai Lama
“We inhabit a universe that is characterized by diversity.” ~ Desmond Tutu
What’s there to say about Truth? …
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” ~ Gloria Steinem
“Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” ~ June Jordan
“I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way.” ~ Dorothy Allison
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” ~ George Orwell
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” ~Flannery O’Connor
“Truth never damages a cause that is just.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is … to tell the truth.” ~ Howard Zinn
In defense of freedom …
“Freedom is never given; it is won.” ~ A. Philip Randolph
“You can cage the singer but not the song.” ~ Harry Belafonte
“To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” ~ Nelson Mandela
“Jails and prisons are designed to break human beings, to convert the population into specimens in a zoo — obedient to our keepers, but dangerous to each other.” ~ Angela Davis
“I was a prisoner, but I always felt free because I was not frightened… So for me real freedom is freedom from fear.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” ~ Virginia Woolf
“Freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.” ~ Coretta Scott King
“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.” ~ Frederick Douglass
“I freed a lot of slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” ~ Harriet Tubman
On the debate about ends justifying means …
“Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“You must be the change you wish to see.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” ~ Audre Lorde
“Social advance depends as much upon the process through which it is secured as upon the result itself.” ~ Jane Addams
“You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today’s step is tomorrow’s life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You’ve proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.” ~ Wilhelm Reich
When you’re tempted to squelch your righteous anger …
“Generally speaking, if a human being never shows anger, then I think something’s wrong. He’s not right in the brain.” ~ Dalai Lama
“It’s time for women to stop being politely angry.” ~ Leymah Gbowee
“I think there is clearly a kind of anger that is healthy. It is the concentration of one’s whole being in the determination: this must change.” ~ Barbara Deming
“No one can tell you how long to mourn a death or rage over a rape. But you can’t move forward until you break that chain.” ~ Leymah Gbowee
“You’ve gotta be very careful that grace and politeness do not merge into a banality of behavior, where we’re just nice, sort of ‘death by cupcake.’” ~ Bono
“If the corporations have their way, the Earth will be killed, and that’s in your lifetime… It’s obscene to me that the corporations are running the world. We’ve got to get cross. Anger is an appropriate emotion.” ~ Dr. Helen Caldicott
What about fear? …
“Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.” ~ Grace Paley
“I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I’ll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side.” ~ Audre Lorde
“It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it, and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“The one thing I have never been afraid of is standing before important people and speaking my mind. I represent women who may never have the opportunity to go to the UN or meet with a president. I’m never afraid to speak truth to power.” ~ Leymah Gbowee
“In the course of history, there comes a time when humanity is called to shift to a new level of consciousness, to reach a higher moral ground. A time when we have to shed our fear and give hope to each other. That time is now.” ~ Wangari Maathai
“We do not deride the fears of prospering white America. A nation of violence and private property has every reason to dread the violated and the deprived.” ~ June Jordan
“The only real prison is fear and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“When I dare to be powerful — to use my strength in the service of my vision — then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.” ~ Audre Lorde
”The best protection any woman can have …. is courage.” ~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
When you’re feeling “ordinary” …
“The little grassroots people can change this world.” ~ Wangari Maathai
“For me, the difference between an ‘ordinary’ and an ‘extraordinary’ person is not the title that person might have, but what they do to make the world a better place for us all.” ~ Jody Williams
“I think there’s a mythology that if you want to change the world, you have to be sainted, like Mother Teresa or Nelson Mandela or Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Ordinary people with lives that go up and down and around in circles can still contribute to change.” ~ Jody Williams
“Suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us extraordinary.” ~ Dorothy Allison
People of all genders have just about had it with patriarchy
“It is not enough just to open the door to the rooms of power. We have to get inside and rearrange the furniture!” ~ “Mama” Gertrude Mongella (first President of the Pan-African Parliament)
“Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge. Some of us have ventured out nevertheless, and so far we have not fallen off. It is my faith, my feminist faith, that we will not.” ~ Andrea Dworkin
“I appeal to women not to let themselves become corrupted by male power. Emancipation is something more than a ‘ticket’ to serve in the army.” ~ Petra Kelly
”Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” ~ Susan B. Anthony
”All I ask from our brethren is that they will take their feet from off our necks.” ~ Sarah Grimké
“As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace.” ~ Julia Ward Howe
“Whatever your fight, don’t be ladylike.” ~ Mother Jones
“It’s insulting when outsiders come in and tell a traumatized people what it will take for them to heal… People who have lived through a terrible conflict may be hungry and desperate, but they are not stupid. They often have very good ideas about how peace can evolve, and they need to be asked. That includes women. Most especially women.” ~ Leymah Gbowee
“The tyranny of masculinity and the tyranny of patriarchy I think has been much more deadly to men than it has to women. It hasn’t killed our hearts. It’s killed men’s hearts. It’s silenced them; it’s cut them off.” ~ Eve Ensler
“We have not yet made violence against women abnormal, extraordinary, unacceptable. We have not yet come to see it as a pathological issue.” ~ Eve Ensler
“The U.N. now says that one out of three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in their lifetime; we’re talking about the desecration of the primary resource of the planet.” ~ Eve Ensler
“I have hope for the world, although it is ten minutes before Doomsday. Women all over the world are rising up and infusing the anti-nuclear and peace movements with a vitality and creativity never seen before.” ~ Petra Kelly
Sometimes it helps to remember we are Earthlings, living on the far end of the Milky Way …
“We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller
“There are fixed points through time where things must always stay the way they are. This is not one of them. This is an opportunity… Come on. Be extraordinary!” ~ Doctor Who (TV character)
“We are at a point in human evolution when human solidarity on a global scale is absolutely vital for the survival of the human species. That means understanding that … we are all co-inhabitants of this planet.” ~ Petra Kelly
“All things are connected, like the blood which unites one family… Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.” ~ Chief Seattle
“I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.” ~ Eugene V. Debs
“I really wonder what gives us the right to wreck this poor planet of ours.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut
“From the moon, Earth is so small and so fragile and such a precious little spot in that universe, that you can block it out with your thumb. Then you realize that on that spot, that little blue and white thing, is everything that means anything to you — all of history and music and poetry and art and death and birth and love, tears, joy, games, all of it right there on that little spot that you can cover with your thumb.” ~ Rusty Schweickart (astronaut)
“The first day we all pointed to our own countries. The third or fourth day we were pointing to our continents. By the fifth day, we were aware of only one Earth.” ~ Prince Sultan bin Salman al-Saud (astronaut)
“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.” ~ Carl Sagan
There is power in our stories, power in our listening …
“The longer we listen to one another — with real attention — the more commonality we will find in all our lives. That is, if we are careful to exchange with one another life stories and not simply opinions.” ~ Barbara Deming
“The motto should not be forgive one another, but rather understand one another.” ~ Emma Goldman
“When you listen to other women’s stories, you begin to understand your own better, and you begin to find ways back through and with each other.” ~ Eve Ensler
“I decided to devote my life to telling the story, because I felt that having survived, I owe something to the dead, and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.” ~ Elie Wiesel
“I think when people begin to tell their stories, everything changes, because not only are you legitimized in the telling of your story and are you found, literally, like you matter, you exist in the telling of your story, but when you hear your story be told, you suddenly exist in community and with others.” ~ Eve Ensler
Silence and apathy are the enemy …
“Your silence will not protect you.” ~ Audre Lorde
“Go where there is silence and say something.” ~ Amy Goodman
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.” ~ Elie Wiesel
“We may have found a cure for most evils; but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings.” ~ Helen Keller
“The hottest place in Hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of great moral conflict.” ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.” ~ Elie Wiesel
“Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.” ~ Frederick Douglass
“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” ~ Desmond Tutu
“I think the greatest illusion we have is that denial protects us. It’s actually the biggest distortion and lie. In fact, staying asleep is what’s killing us.” ~ Eve Ensler
“When we speak, we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So, it is better to speak.” ~ Audre Lorde
“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
“I realize that I cannot stand by silently as my government executes its citizens. If I do not speak out and resist, I am an accomplice.” ~ Sr. Helen Prejean
“Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
When you’re tempted to go it alone …
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.” ~ Dorothy Day
“I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.” ~ Angela Davis
“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” ~ Eugene V. Debs
“Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.” ~ Desmond Tutu
“Independence? That’s middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“Without community, there is no liberation.” ~ Audre Lorde
“The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” ~ Jane Addams
“No decisions should ever be made without asking the question, is this for the common good?” ~ Michael Moore
“Each life reverberates in every other life. Whether or not we acknowledge it, we are connected, woven together in our needs and desires, rich and poor, men and women alike.” ~ Susan Griffin
“Nature compels us to recognize the fact of mutual dependence, each life necessarily helping the other lives who are linked to it. In the very fibers of our being, we bear within ourselves the fact of the solidarity of life.” ~ Albert Schweitzer
And now, let’s hear it for love, peace, and compassion …
“If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.” ~ John Lennon
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
“We resolve that we re-up our courage this year — but that our courage have generosity in it, not only ferocity.” ~ Reverend Billy (Talon)
“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” ~ Dalai Lama
“The method of trying to conquer hatred through hatred never succeeds in overcoming hatred. But, the method of overcoming hatred through non-hatred is eternally effective. That is why that method is described as eternal wisdom.” ~ Buddha
“Grant that I might not so much seek to be loved as to love.” Francis of Assisi
“Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries.” ~ Oscar Romero
“Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.” ~ John Lennon
“Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent than the one derived from fear of punishment.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“Peace is the product of justice and love.” ~ Oscar Romero
“While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.” ~ Francis of Assisi
“We call upon people everywhere to work for peace, to forget the quiet comfort of their homes, to leave behind their fears and feeling of powerlessness, their privileges and possessions, and join us as active participants and co-workers for peace.” ~ Petra Kelly
“If you are connected to your own internal being, it is very hard to be screwing and destroying and hurting another human being, because you’ll be feeling what they’re feeling. If you’re separated, it’s not a hard thing to do at all.” ~ Eve Ensler
“Peace begins when the hungry are fed.” ~ Dorothy Day
“Every thought, every word, and every action that adds to the positive and the wholesome is a contribution to peace.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that’s his problem. Love and peace are eternal.” ~ John Lennon
“There is no way to peace; peace is the way.” ~ A. J. Muste
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama
“Peace is not just the absence of mass destruction, but a positive internal and external condition in which people are free so that they can grow to their full potential.” ~ Petra Kelly
After you’ve made a mistake …
“Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.” ~ Mahatma Gandhi
“The process of growth is, it seems, the art of falling down. Growth is measured by the gentleness and awareness with which we once again pick ourselves up, the lightness with which we dust ourselves off, the openness with which we continue and take the next unknown step — into the remarkable mystery of being.” ~ Stephen Levine
“Children have a lesson adults should learn, to not be ashamed of failing, but to get up and try again. Most of us adults are so afraid, so cautious, so ‘safe,’ and therefore so shrinking and rigid and afraid. That is why so many humans fail. Most middle-aged adults have resigned themselves to failure.” ~ Malcolm X
“If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.” ~ Holly Near
“When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So, I did ten times more work.” ~ George Bernard Shaw
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” ~ J.K. Rowling
“I really don’t think life is about the I-could-have-beens. Life is only about the I-tried-to-do. I don’t mind the failure, but I can’t imagine that I’d forgive myself if I didn’t try.” ~ Nikki Giovanni
“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.” ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay
When everyone else is going shopping at the mall …
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.” ~ Mark Twain
“Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I’d rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.” ~ Dorothy Allison
“There is a notion that creative people are absent-minded, reckless, heedless of social customs and obligations. It is, hopefully, true for they are in another world altogether.” ~ Mary Oliver
“What would Jesus buy?” ~ Reverend Billy Talen (Church of Stop Shopping)
“Somehow, I don’t think Jesus came to Earth to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.” ~ Michael Moore
“Stop fixing your bodies, and start fixing the world!” ~ Eve Ensler
“As far as I’m concerned, being any gender is a drag.” ~ Patti Smith
Remember, joy is good …
“May God protect me from gloomy saints.” ~ Teresa of Avila
“It is a grief over the fate of the Earth that contains within it a joyful hope, that we might reclaim this Earth.” ~ Susan Griffin
“If I can’t dance, I do not want to be part of your revolution.” ~ Emma Goldman
“I think for me, happiness is crucial, but I think we think that happiness comes from amassing goods and getting things and being loved and being successful, when in fact my experience of happiness comes when you give everything away, when you serve people, when you’re watching something you do make somebody happy — that’s when happiness happens.” ~ Eve Ensler
“Joy is the best makeup.” ~ Anne Lamott
When your old bones ache …
”The older I get, the greater power I seem to have to help the world: I am like a snowball — the further I am rolled, the more I gain.” ~ Susan B. Anthony
“Age is not important unless you’re a cheese.” ~ Helen Hayes
“I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense.” ~ Eve Ensler
“Those who are rooted in the depths that are eternal and unchangeable and who rely on unshakeable principles, face change full of courage, courage based on faith.” ~ Emily Greene Balch
When you feel defeated and are tempted to give up …
“Every person who has ever achieved anything has been knocked down many times. But all of them picked themselves up and kept going, and that is what I have always tried to do.” ~ Wangari Maathai
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” ~ Frederick Douglass
“If you’re feeling helpless, help someone.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“Nothing could be worse than the fear that one had given up too soon and left one unexpended effort that might have saved the world.” ~ Jane Addams
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” ~ Oscar Wilde
“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 fail. Think of it — always.” ~ Aung San Suu Kyi
“Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude, and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.” ~ Elie Wiesel