Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" Sometimes you have to not just dream about what could be - you get out and push and you pull and you preach. And you create a climate and environment to get those in high places, to get men and women of good will in power to act. "

Related Quotes:

" I remember back in the 1960s - late '50s, really - reading a comic book called 'Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Story.' Fourteen pages. It sold for 10 cents. And this little book inspired me to attend non-violence workshops, to study about Gandhi, about Thoreau, to study Martin Luther King, Jr., to study civil disobedience. "

John Lewis

Remember

Book

King

" I travel all the time, but when I come back to the South, I see such progress. In a real sense, a great deal of the South has been redeemed. People feel freer, more complete, more whole, because of what happened in the movement. "

" The action of Rosa Parks, the words and leadership of Dr. King inspired me. I was deeply inspired. I wanted to do something. "

John Lewis

Words

Action

" We should be creative, and we should accommodate the needs of every community to open up the democratic process. We should make it easy and accessible for every citizen to participate. "

" Many young people, many children, are being abused, being put down, being bullied because of their sexual orientation. "

" Some of us gave a little blood for the right to participate in the democratic process. "

" I studied the philosophy and the discipline of non-violence in Nashville as a student. And I staged a sitting-in in the fall of 1959 and got arrested the first time in February 1960. "

" We must bring the issue of mental illness out into the sunlight, out of the shadow, out of the closet, deal with it, treat people, have centers where people can get the necessary help. "

" There is a need for a movement of non-violent direct action. "

" The vote controls everything that you do. "

" What 'March' is saying is that it doesn't matter whether we are black or white, Latino or Asian. It doesn't matter whether we are straight or gay. "

" Black men and women were not allowed to register to vote. My own mother, my own father, my grandfather and my uncles and aunts could not register to vote because each time they attempted to register to vote, they were told they could not pass the literacy test. "

" You have to be persistent. "

John Lewis

Persistent

You

" We need someone who will stand up and speak up and speak out for the people who need help, for people who are being discriminated against. And it doesn't matter whether they are black or white, Latino, Asian or Native American, whether they are straight or gay, Muslim, Christian, or Jews. "

" I am very, very hopeful about the American South - I believe that we will lead America to what Dr. King called 'the beloved community.' "

" Without our faith, we wouldn't have been able to succeed. On many occasions, before we'd go out on a sit-in, before we went on the freedom ride, before we marched from Selma to Montgomery, we would sing a song or say a prayer. Without our faith, without the spirit and spiritual bearings and underpinning, we would not have been so successful. "

" If someone had told me in 1963 that one day I would be in Congress, I would have said, 'You're crazy. You don't know what you're talking about.' "

" What I try to tell young people is that if you come together with a mission, and its grounded with love and a sense of community, you can make the impossible possible. "

" There are still forces in America that want to divide us along racial lines, religious lines, sex, class. But we've come too far; we've made too much progress to stop or to pull back. We must go forward. And I believe we will get there. "

" I really believe that all of us, as Americans... we all need to be treated like fellow human beings. "

" Never give up. Never give in. Never become hostile... Hate is too big a burden to bear. "

" In 1965, the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery on March 7 was planned to dramatize to the state of Alabama and to the nation that people of color wanted to register to vote. "

" It's not just Barack Obama, but I doubt Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton would have made it to the White House without Selma. "

" Who gets the bird, the hunter or the dog? "

" We're one people, and we all live in the same house. Not the American house, but the world house. "

" To make it hard, to make it difficult almost impossible for people to cast a vote is not in keeping with the democratic process. "

" I grew up in rural Alabama, 50 miles from Montgomery, in a very loving, wonderful family: wonderful mother, wonderful father. We attended church; we went to Sunday school every Sunday. "

" In Selma, Alabama, in 1965, only 2.1 percent of blacks of voting age were registered to vote. The only place you could attempt to register was to go down to the courthouse. You had to pass a so-called literacy test. And they would tell people over and over again that they didn't or couldn't pass the literacy test. "

" I would say the country is a different country. It is a better country. The signs I saw when I was growing up are gone and they will not return. In many ways the walls of segregation have been torn down. "

" I don't understand it, how President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam and cannot send troops to Selma, Alabama, to protect people whose only desire is to register to vote. "