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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Barack Obama3 quotes
The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. — Barack Obama · 1965We have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action. — Barack Obama · 2013We are the change that we seek. — Barack Obama · 2008Frederick Douglass3 quotes
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. — Frederick Douglass · 1857If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. — Frederick Douglass · 1857The man who is right is a majority. He who has God and conscience on his side, has a majority against the universe. Though he does not represent the present state, he represents the future state. If he does not represent what we are, he represents what we ought to be. — Frederick Douglass · 1852John F. Kennedy3 quotes
Now the trumpet summons us again—not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need—not as a call to battle, though embattled we are—but a a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle, year in and year out, "rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation"—a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease and war itself. — John F. Kennedy · 1961All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. — John F. Kennedy · 1961Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. — John F. Kennedy · 1977Franklin D. Roosevelt2 quotes
We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful, law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1937Things in life will not always run smoothly. Sometimes we will be rising toward the heights—then all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great fact to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward; that a line drawn through the middle of the peaks and the valleys of the centuries always has an upward trend. — Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1945George Orwell2 quotes
To think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration. — George Orwell · 1946If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: "To fight against Fascism," and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: "Common decency." — George Orwell · 1938Martin Luther King, Jr.2 quotes
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land. And I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1968"Wait" has almost always meant "Never." — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1963Abraham Lincoln1 quote
There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law. — Abraham Lincoln · 1838Angela Davis1 quote
Sometimes we have to do the work even though we don't yet see a glimmer on the horizon that it's actually going to be possible. — Angela Davis · 2014Barbara Jordan1 quote
"We, the people." It is a very eloquent beginning. But when that document was completed on the seventeenth of September in 1787 I was not included in that "We, the people." I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation and court decision, I have finally been included in "We, the people." — Barbara Jordan · 1974Belva Lockwood1 quote
It is the glory of each generation to make its own precedents. — Belva Lockwood · 1877Benjamin Disraeli1 quote
Finality, Sir, is not the language of politics. — Benjamin Disraeli · 1859Bhairavi Desai1 quote
The best way to get inside city hall is to make noise on the street. — Bhairavi Desai · 2011Bob Dylan1 quote
Come Senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall. — Bob Dylan · 1963Calvin Coolidge1 quote
If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers. — Calvin Coolidge · 1926Carrie Chapman Catt1 quote
When a just cause reaches its flood-tide... Whatever stands in the way must fall before its overwhelming power. — Carrie Chapman Catt · 1911Cornel West1 quote
Justice is love on legs, spilling over into the public sphere. — Cornel West · 2009Emmeline Pankhurst1 quote
We are here not because we are law-breakers. We are here in our efforts to become law-makers. — Emmeline Pankhurst · 1914Eugene Debs1 quote
When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right. — Eugene Debs · 1918Felix Frankfurter1 quote
In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people's representatives. — Felix Frankfurter · 1962Fidel Castro1 quote
A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past. — Fidel Castro · 1961James Callaghan1 quote
You never reach the promised land. You can march towards it. — James Callaghan · 1976James Madison1 quote
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit. — James Madison · 1788John Lewis1 quote
We may not have chosen the time, but the time has chosen us. — John Lewis · 2006Karl Marx1 quote
The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. — Karl Marx · 1845Robert F. Kennedy1 quote
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land. — Robert F. Kennedy · 1968Rosa Luxemburg1 quote
Revolution do not stand still. — Rosa Luxemburg · 1918Sam Cooke1 quote
I was born by the river
In a little tent
And just like the river
I've been runnin' ever since
It's been a long, a long time comin'
But I know a change gon' come. — Sam Cooke · 1964Samuel Johnson1 quote
Most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. — Samuel Johnson · 1769Seamus Heaney1 quote
History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme. — Seamus Heaney · 1990Sinclair Lewis1 quote
I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers...coax us, "Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just give us a bit more time and we’ll produce it; trust us; we're wiser than you." For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now-and we're going to try our hands at it. — Sinclair Lewis · 1920