Greg Boyle Quotes

Solutions and ideas should come from the bottom up, generated by local communities and not mandated from Washington.

Governments do not have the answers - indeed, quite the reversal. A lot of times, they not only do not have the answers, but they themselves are the problem. If we are committed to helping our world's children, then we must begin to create solutions from the bottom up.

Now technology gives you a chance to help organize. You don't have to wait for either the inefficiency or the corruption. You don't have to wait for government. You can actually self-organize and build institutions bottom up.

I believe that change comes from the bottom, not the top.

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.

We have entered an era vibrating with the din of small voices. Every citizen can be a reporter, can take on the powers that be.

But when others suggested that the poor should not simply be the objects of these programs but also the subjects - that they should be actively involved in shaping the programs, making decisions about how to spend the money etc. - some of the previous supporters reconsidered.

The best revolutions are unplanned, and the most democratic are leaderless.

Change is not in the hands of government, not in the hands of a leader or guru, and not in the hands of the powerful or wealthy. It is in our hands: the hands of each and every one of us.

Turmoil is everywhere, and the whole world is waiting for solutions to come from the top down. That's not how it works - community change from the bottom up makes a real difference.

Anytime there's an actual grassroots movement that isn't funded by people trying to create a grassroots movement, I find that interesting.

This party [the Progressive Party] comes from the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of the people's hard necessities.

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

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.

I am hostile to the idea that collective solutions have to be made by committees and then imposed top-down. I very much prefer bottom-up solutions.

I just want to put the power back to the people.

I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.

Small acts by millions of people - imagine the impact of that. If someone changes one thing, they're likely to change two things, and then three things. Then they're likely to demand that from their leadership.

Our future is in our hands and we must stop looking to politicians to fix matters - they can't.

The People's Party, I am working for the people and we want to put the power back in people.

change starts at the bottom. I think we're disempowered by the idea that it starts at the top, when really change is like a tree. It does start at the bottom.

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

Development seems to have become the agenda only of government. It is seen as a scheme. That should not be the case. Development should be everyone's agenda. It should be a people's movement.

If a movement is to have an impact it must belong to those who join it, not those who lead it.

I don't think top-down works in America.