Top 130 Activism Quotes

Digital activism did not spring immaculately out of Twitter and Facebook. It’s been going on ever since blogs existed.

Somebody referred to what I do as subliminal activism, which I like.

When you hear anyone policing the bodies of trans women, misgendering and othering us, and violently exiling us from spaces, you should not dismiss it as a trans issue that trans women should speak out against. You should be engaged in the dialogue, discourse, and activism that challenges the very fibers of your movement.

I think we have responsibilities to be active in the things we believe in, regardless of what our job is. At least in my lifetime, there has been a tremendous combining of activism and music, that came up in the era of Pete Seeger and the Weavers and Joan Baez and Bob Dylan and Peter Paul & Mary.

There’s a rising tide of environmental awareness and activism among consumers that’s going to continue to swell in the 21st century. Smart companies will get ahead of that wave and ride it to success and prosperity. Those that don’t are headed for a wipeout.

Poetry can’t give us the laws and institutions and representatives, the antidotes we need: only public activism by massive numbers of citizens can do that.

Activism in the street is truth-telling, and organizing is talking to people for a specific goal.

I’m sure my father would applaud the explosion of youth activism that has emerged in response to the gun violence pandemic. I’m certain my parents would agree it is gratifying to see young people leading social change projects in a multiracial coalition.

Judicial activism must be lessened, and the judiciary should do its work and let politicians work.

One of the most unfortunate side effects of the urban activism of the ’60s and ’70s is the belief that development is wrong and that fighting it makes you an environmentalist.

There’s enormous progressive activism and, more often than not, success at the grassroots level – everything from living wage campaigns to efforts to finance our elections are having terrific success.

Art is about the edges and the sharp corners and those places are not conducive to activism, which is about putting on a gloss.

Not living in fear is a form of activism.

My activism always existed. My art gave me the platform to do something about the activism.

Traditionalists will have to master techniques of sustained activism formerly monopolized by the left.

You know, there’s a lot of activism that doesn’t deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

Gays and lesbians gained rights in this country though activism and organizing, creating political space and demanding change so that lawmakers and justices could do what they knew was right. That organizing allowed Americans to get to know gays and lesbians as our daughters and sons, our neighbors, and our friends.

As a Welsh speaker, I’m very conscious of how activism can effect real change.

There’s always going to be a need for activism; there’s always going to be a need for you and me doing the right thing, being very Lincoln-sonian in looking out for each other.

Activism has been very productive in our society.

There’s a lot of activism that doesn’t deal with empowerment, and you have to empower yourself in order to be relevant to any type of struggle.

I just look back at my time in college and think about how much my community activism and my work in neighborhoods really informed my actual academic career and beyond… It can provide a way better learning than the traditional classroom setting.

Shareholder activism works when activists understand something about the characteristics of the business that the board doesn’t.

I’ve always felt that activism and art go hand in hand.

I was taught the value of everyday activism and showing up by my grandma, who wasn’t a public official, but was a breast cancer researcher and would mentor students of color in her lab at UC Berkley. She taught me when I was 4 years old what the word boycott meant.

I was very fortunate to grow up in France with amazing parents who allowed me to understand the importance of activism. My dad was a politician but he was also an activist, and my mom was a beautiful feminist who took care of others.

For me, writing, drawing, and political activism are three separate pursuits; each has its own intensity. I happen to be especially attuned to and engaged with the society in which I live. Both my writing and my drawing are invariably mixed up with politics, whether I want them to be or not.

The inspiration of my drag is the history of drag, the long tradition of drag queens being at the forefront of queer activism. That informs my drag style, and in a sense, that is the direction we need to go in the future.

There’s this artistic drive or something in me that impels me to sympathize with villains, but it’s maybe not a great impulse as someone who wants to do activism as well.

I do try to separate my personal activism – showing up at a demonstration or something – from what I write.

We still live in a country where there’s disproportionate violence faced by our community, especially trans people and trans people of color. I think activism within the queer community continues to need to focus on those issues first.

Art and activism seem to go together naturally, the idea being that if you’re an entertainer, you can have a voice, and if you have a voice, you can make a difference. But if I were not an actress, I would still try to extend myself beyond my little micro-universe of my job, family and personal joy.

In the 1980s, Josef Beuys planted the seed that activism could be considered as art. I am influenced by the idea of his idea of social sculpture.

To me I think leadership is activism. It’s giving back to your community, it’s investing in oneself, and you know women and children.

I believe activism is the true source of change in the world. Pushing to change social structures in communities that you are a part of is critical for making real lasting change.

Women’s empowerment, whether through legal, financial, or cultural routes, will tend to increase their agency and their ability to take part in activism.

I genuinely do want the world to change in a positive way, but I wouldn’t call myself an activist, you know? I’m an entertainer who engages with activism because it feels really meaningful for me.

If you have the opportunity for your art to meet activism, you shouldn’t pass that up when it comes your way.

I am, in general, favourable to activism and social movements and hostile to graft and corruption.

My pro-choice activism keeps me busy.

I never liked the status quo. Once I went to college, I got very involved in student activism.

You have so much responsibility because when you’re in the kitchen, it’s not just food, it’s where the food comes from, what you did with production, what you did it with human interaction, and how you did it with different cultures. Food becomes a mark of activism.

Activism is in my DNA.

Actually oddly enough, I think my work, the activism, will be forgotten. And I hope it will. Because I hope those problems will have gone away.

Activism is moral authority in redemptive liberalism.

Activism isn’t beautiful and easy, or a bunch of people getting together and picketing; it’s a lot more complicated and difficult than that.

There’s no running water in a remote Aboriginal community? I can do something about that, let’s go do it. I’ve been brought up that way. So political activism, is it that? I don’t know, because that’s not what makes me go, ‘yeah let’s do this now.’

To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that’s less divisive. Even if songs aren’t overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.

The only newspaper in our house when I was growing up was the Daily Mail, and we would never have dreamt of discussing politics around the dinner table. So my involvement in politics came about through activism.

I think, in terms of activism associated with my films, be it ‘Salaam Baalak Trust’ or ‘Maisha,’ taking the idea of cinema as a way to change people, I feel heartened. I am glad that we have impacted thousands of lives.

I discovered that wearing the veil is not suitable for a woman who wants to work in activism and the public domain. People need to see you, to associate and relate to you. It is not stated in my religion to wear the veil; it is a traditional practice, so I took it off.

Unlike national legal systems, there are precious few avenues to address judicial activism at the WTO. You pretty much have to gain consensus to change the agreements, or simply withdraw from the system. The first is nearly impossible, and the second would be – in the view of many – cataclysmic.

As you know, when Star Trek was canceled after the second season, it was the activism of the fans that revived it for a third season.

Our aims in political activism are not, and should not be, to create a perfect utopia.