Cannery Row Press/Rise-up Quotes

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Rebels With a Clause...

Whenever they's a fight so hungry people

can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there . . . .

I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an' I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready.

An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise

an' live in the houses they build-why,

I'll be there. "Tom Joad”
-John Steinbeck

Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive

it is to be poor. -James Baldwin

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids

rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges,

to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. -Anatole France

We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

A balance between sustainable ecology and sustainable human life, on the one hand, and the unfettered drive for profit, on the other,

is just an oxymoron. - David Suzuki

We live in a culture where people are more offended by ‘swear’ words and middle fingers than they are by famine, warfare and the destruction of our environment.

- Unknown

A good head and a good heart are always

a formidable combination.

- Nelson Mandela

If you are neutral in situations of injustice,

you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral,

the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.
-Desmond Tutu

Poverty is the worst form of violence. -Mahatma Gandhi

No matter that patriotism is

too often the refuge of scoundrels.

Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
-Barbara Ehrenreich

Human salvation lies in the hands

of the creatively maladjusted.

-Martin Luther King Jr.

I see a peaceful world in which we have

finally come to terms with the reality that

our survival depends on abandoning conflict, working for peace, sharing what we have

and living within our ecological means.
- Elizabeth May

In a room where people unanimously

maintain a conspiracy of silence,

one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.
- Czesław Miłosz

Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice

and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth.
- William Faulkner

Contrary to today's stereotypes,

racists do not always chew tobacco and

drive pickup trucks with gun racks. They wear silk shirts, treat women as possessions, and talk about human rights at cocktail parties far from communities of people of color. The men in pickup trucks are just as likely to be warm and caring as the high-minded liberals are

to be racists.

-Wilma Mankiller

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard.

-Robert H. Jackson

The question is not if we will be extremists,

but what kind of extremists we will be.

The nation and the world

are in dire need of creative extremists.
-Martin Luther King Jr

It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. - Ansel Adams

The woman is the foundation on which nations are built. She is the heart of her nation. If that heart is weak, the people are weak. If her heart is strong and her mind is clear, then the nation is strong and knows its purpose. The woman is the center of everything.

-Art Solomon

Nothing strengthens authority so much

as silence.

- Leonardo da Vinci

You do not win by struggling to the top

of a caste system, you win by refusing

to be trapped within one at all.
- Naomi Wolf

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true.

No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.
-Rosa Parks

When the last tree is cut, the last fish killed and

the last river poisoned, then you will see

that you can't eat money.
- John May

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come

because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together... - Lilla Watson

The most dangerous creation of any society

is the man who has nothing to lose.
-James Baldwin

It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who had no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise

a little brief authority, and show

their subserviency to the slaveholders;

not reflecting that the power

which trampled on the colored people

also kept themselves in poverty,

ignorance and moral degradation.
-Harriet Ann Jacobs

Earth provides enough to satisfy

every man's needs, but not every man's greed.
-Mahatma Gandhi

For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have.

The sea rises, the light fails, lovers

cling to each other, and children cling to us.

The moment we cease to hold each other,

the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

- James Baldwin

There are always risks in challenging

excessive police power,

but the risks of not challenging it

are more dangerous, even fatal. -Hunter S. Thompson

At the street corner, a one-storey house built of freestone, but repulsively decrepit and filthy seemed to command the entrance, like a gaol. And here, indeed, lived La Méchain, like a vigilant proprietess, ever on the watch, exploiting in person her little population of starving tenants. - Émile Zola

Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime. - Aristotle

It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it,

and it's usually crucifixion. -John Steinbeck

Diversity is not about how we differ.

Diversity is about embracing

one another’s uniqueness.

- Ola Joseph

Do I really want to be integrated

into a burning house? - James Baldwin

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

- Alice Walker

When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food,

they call me a communist. - Dom Helder Camara

And the little screaming fact that sounds

through all history: repression works only to

strengthen and knit the repressed.

The great owners ignored the three cries of history. The land fell into fewer hands, the number of the dispossessed increased

and every effort of the great owners

was directed at repression. The money was spent for arms, for gas to protect the great holdings, and spies were sent to catch the murmuring of revolt so that it might be stamped out.

The changing economy was ignored,

plans for the change ignored; and

only means to destroy revolt were considered,

while the causes of revolt went on.

- John Steinbeck