Corazon Aquino Quotes

There is no power above people power.

Ours is a country where anything can be accomplished if enough people get angry... because, in America, we act on our collective anger.

The walls, the bars, the guns and the guards can never encircle or hold down the idea of the people.

The whole idea of a democracy is that we ourselves, the people, are supposed to make a path of our politics, and it is we who with our feet and our vote and our labors and our vigilance are supposed to shape our country.

I have always believed that on important issues, the leaders must lead. Where the leaders fail to lead, and people are really concerned about it, the people will take the lead and make the leaders follow.

The Chinese people are not a new kind of human nature. Human nature in China is the same as it is elsewhere. When you start in a tyrannical regime to hand out freedom there is no place to draw that line and expect that line to hold. And so it’s only a matter of time before this regime comes down

The power of the arts is not simply to provide pleasant esthetics but to help move us forward as a democracy.

Democracy comes alive not when government does anything, because government cannot be depended on to rectify serious injustices. It comes alive when people organize and do something about it.

It’s only at certain points in history that people realize just how much power that they have.

Americans have a tendency to exalt the concept of a popular uprising.

Hillary Clinton is the problem; she is not the solution to Donald Trump. We are the solution. We are the ones we've been waiting for. This is our moment. Together, we do have the power to create an America and a world that works for all of us.

Freedom will not prevail because of historical forces; it will only win, if it does, because of historical actors. In other words, us. Those like me who came of age around 1989 used to take democracy for granted.

I am one who believes in the power of the people. I am inspired when I see people hit the streets, who challenge their elected officials, and are willing to stand up and fight. I encourage it.

When things happen socially in our community, as artists, we've got the right to exercise our voices if we choose to, use our powers for good.

A nation should not be a hostage to one man's thirst for power, and it won't. Belarusians have woken up. The point of no return has passed.

Remember, there are two things that keep us oppressed: them and us. We are half of the equation. There will not be a magic day when we wake up and it's now OK to express ourselves publicly. We must make that day ourselves, by speaking out publicly -- first in small numbers, then in greater numbers, until it's simply the way things are and no one thinks twice. Never doubt that we will create this world, because, my friends, we are fortunate to live in a democracy, and in a democracy, we decide what's possible.

Silence is not an effective political strategy, and what we do if we silence the public interest, which is so hard to hear anyway, is that we silence ourselves and then we do not have a democracy.

Politics matters. Ideas matter. Democracy matters, because all of us need to be able to make a difference.

The power of the people and the power of reason are one.

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

The spirit of democracy is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms. It requires change of heart.

We are here, not because we are law-breakers; we are here in our efforts to become law-makers.

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.

The deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied.

The revolution is like a vessel filled with the pulsating heartbeat of millions of working people.