Words matter. These are the best Cesar Chavez Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Without a union, the people are always cheated, and they are so innocent.
Farm workers are society’s canaries. Farm workers – and their children – demonstrate the effects of pesticide poisoning before anyone else.
Since the Church is to be servant to the poor, it is our fault if that wealth is not channeled to help the poor in our world.
Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?
Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.
Though many of the poor have come to see the affluent middle class as its enemy, that class actually stands between the poor and the real powers in this society – the administrative octopus with its head in Washington, the conglomerates, the military complex.
It is my deepest belief that only by giving our lives do we find life. I am convinced that the truest act of courage, the strongest act of manliness is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally non-violent struggle for justice.
The burdens of generations of poverty and powerlessness lie heavy in the fields of America. If we fail, there are those who will see violence as the shortcut to change.
The end of all knowledge should be service to others.
We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community… Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.
It is possible to become discouraged about the injustice we see everywhere. But God did not promise us that the world would be humane and just. He gives us the gift of life and allows us to choose the way we will use our limited time on earth. It is an awesome opportunity.
In some cases non-violence requires more militancy than violence.
We farm workers are closest to food production. We were the first to recognize the serious health hazards of agriculture pesticides to both consumers and ourselves.
What we do know absolutely is that human lives are worth more than grapes and that innocent-looking grapes on the table may disguise poisonous residues hidden deep inside where washing cannot reach.
We learned many years ago that the rich may have money, but the poor have time.
Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves – and be free.
From the depth of need and despair, people can work together, can organize themselves to solve their own problems and fill their own needs with dignity and strength.
Who gets the risks? The risks are given to the consumer, the unsuspecting consumer and the poor work force. And who gets the benefits? The benefits are only for the corporations, for the money makers.
There is no law for farm labor organizing, save the law of the jungle.
We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.
The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.
There is no substitute for hard work, 23 or 24 hours a day. And there is no substitute for patience and acceptance.
