Freedom & Action Quotes
Mankind is God’s family; for its sustenance is from Him: therefore the most beloved unto God is the person who doeth good to God’s family.
~Prophet Muhammad
When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
For 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
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.
~Mahatma Ghandi
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
~Benjamin Franklin
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
~Edmund Burke
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
~Margaret Mead
When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist.
When they locked up the socialists, I remained silent; I was not a socialist.
When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I wasn’t a Jew.
When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.
~Pastor Martin Niemöller
You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.
~Malcolm X
No man is above the law and no man below it.
~Theodore Roosevelt
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.
~Carl T. Rowan
No one is free when others are oppressed.
~Author Unknown
To be patriotic is to be able to question government policy in times of crisis. To be patriotic is to stand up for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in times of uncertainty and insecurity. To be patriotic is to speak up against the powerful in defense of the weak and the voiceless. To be patriotic is to be willing to pay the price to preserve our freedoms, dignity, and rights. To be patriotic is to challenge the abuses of the PATRIOT Act.
~Sami Al-Arian
How could they say that my religion, Islam was a ‘race hate’ religion after all the plunder and enslavement and domination of my people by white Christians in the name of white supremacy?
~Muhammad Ali
Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal, which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice.
~Arnold Toynbee
If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
~ Noam Chomsky
To be able to think freely, a man must be certain that no consequence will follow whatever he writes.
~Ernest Renan
I may not agree with what you say, but to your death I will defend your right to say it.
~Voltaire
I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.
~Rosa Parks
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
~George Washington
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.
~Bob Marley
Our government rests in public opinion. Whoever can change public opinion, can change the government, practically just so much.
~Abraham Lincoln
One cannot achieve peace without realizing justice, realize justice without seeking out the truth, seek out the truth without practicing freedom. So living and thinking free is the root of achieving peace in our world.
~Sami Al-Arian
Never depend upon institutions or government to solve any problem. All social movements are founded by, guided by, motivated and seen through by the passion of individuals.
~Margaret Mead
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbor’s rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own.
~Carl Schurz
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
~Edmund Burke
I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.
~James Madison
Without a struggle, there can be no progress.
~Frederick Douglass
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
~Abraham Lincoln
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it’s against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it’s against the oppressor. You don’t need anything else.
~Malcolm X
The United States has been called the melting pot of the world. But it seems to me that the colored man either missed getting into the pot or he got melted down.
~Justice Thurgood Marshall
Action is no less necessary than thought to the instinctive tendencies of the human frame.
~Mahatma Ghandi
The jaws of power are always open to devour, and her arm is always stretched out, if possible, to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing.
~John Adams
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.
~Frederick Douglass
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
~Edmund Burke
A life which does not go into action is a failure.
~Arnold Toynbee
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
~Edmund Burke
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
~Abraham Lincoln
The truth shall make you free.
~Jesus
The most excellent jihad (struggle) is that for the conquest of self.
~Prophet Muhammad
The civil rights movement didn’t begin in Montgomery and it didn’t end in the 1960s. It continues on to this very minute.
~Julian Bond
The Framers of the Bill of Rights did not purport to “create” rights. Rather, they designed the Bill of Rights to prohibit our Government from infringing rights and liberties presumed to be preexisting.
~Justice William J. Brennan
The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.
~Arnold Toynbee
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
~Thomas Jefferson
Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn’t have it in the beginning.
~Mahatma Ghandi
Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
~ Thomas Jefferson
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
~John F. Kennedy
Silence never won rights. They are not handed down from above; they are forced by pressures from below.
~Roger Baldwin
When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
~Confucius
Until the men of action clear out the talkers we who have social consciences are at the mercy of those who have none.
~George Bernard Shaw
Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
~Immanuel Kant
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice every where.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
Justice is truth in action.
~Benjamin Disraeli
Be the change you want to see in the world.
~Mahatma Ghandi
A man’s measure is his will.
~Ali ibn Abi Talib
