Gloria Steinem Quotes

Real change never occurs from the top on down, [but] always from the bottom on up.

Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below.

Progressive change in this country has never come from above.

As a daughter of a former NAACP chapter president, I know all too well how everyday people can change lives and create progress so many others consider 'impossible.'

All change starts with a distant rumble at the grassroots level.

I was elected because I believed in what we call "grassroots politics," politics from the bottom up, not the top down.

The revolution starts at the bottom.

At every turn when there has been an imbalance of power, the truth questioned, or our beliefs and values distorted, the change required to restore our nation has always come from the bottom up from our people.

But we are not in the world to be good but to change it.

There's nothing automatic about political change, about liberation.

Don't ever forget that a small group of thoughtful people can change the world, it's the only thing that ever has.

Social change comes through people.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

If you believe in making change from the bottom up, if you believe the measure of change is how many people's lives are better, you know it's hard, and some people think it's boring.

The organizer dedicated to changing the life of a particular community must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community.

Organize, agitate, educate, must be our war cry.

Progressive, radical, or even revolutionary change has always come from below.

Upbeat is for people who want to feel good about their cause: the reformers, the progressives, the revolutionaries, the utopians, the collectivists, and the rest of the altruistic scum of the earth. Why do these people want to feel good? They want to feel good in order to convince themselves that they are good.

Many people have placed great hopes in our movement.

It's about people rising up in Ferguson and in Egypt and in Occupy Wall Street and in every place where a community has had enough and decides to make change happen. It's not about praising one charismatic leader but celebrating thousands of them... 'Black Messiah' is not one man. It's a feeling that, collectively, we are all that leader.

'The Story of Us with Morgan Freeman' is a reminder that people across the world are rebelling against norms and forging new paths for the most marginalized people in their own communities.

If there is to be an ecologically sound society, it will have to come the grass roots up, not from the top down.

To be part of building a movement, you have to keep moving.

What else can the young be? When you are on the bottom, you must organize from the bottom up

AIM in essence is a movement rather than just an organization. It is a manifestation of the desperation of our people.