Juanita Kreps Quotes

Every great movement in the world starts with a tiny group of people who simply refuse to accept a situation.

Collective action is a means of power, a means by which individuals can more fully realize their individual values.

One guy cannot create a field, but one person can get others thinking.

Corporations always are controlling things, and we have the ability every day to do something about that. Every day.

If the Karmabanque hasn't worked, it's because there isn't yet a critical mass of people who are prepared to fight back and who instead prefer to be victims.

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.

That nonviolence which only an individual can use is not of much use in terms of society.

Black women are going to have to take more leadership. I think we are prepared because we bring a tenaciousness with us. We do not fear losing friends, allies, or jobs.

What excites me is that, when things are tough, people become resourceful, and now with the Internet, social networking and the ability for people who in the past had been relatively powerless, they have tools to be able to spread ideas and organize. The urgency is there and the tools are there and I think that the possibility for really, really powerful results is there. I think it's all brewing, it's all bubbling up right now.

One woman is a pest and two women is a team, but three women or more is a coalition. If you can bring a lot of people together as a coalition, you can get a lot changed.

My feminism has evolved way beyond self-empowerment and I see feminism as a path to peace on earth. The fundamental imbalance that is behind all of the other social diseases is patriarchy. I do believe. As men and women, together, I really long to feel my society evolve its understanding since we're one of the leaders in the f-word. I want us to grow our idea of feminism collectively and get both men and women involved in undoing patriarchy. It's huge. It's a huge job.

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!

I believe in the power of women. As nurturers, we have a unique ability to care and share and make the world a better place. Women Who Inspire are women who are making a difference.

People have far more power than they realize, if they would only choose to use it.

I think people often forget how powerful they are. Sometimes it just takes one voice to save a life. When we speak up we can not only change a life or save a life, but we can also make it possible for other people to speak up. If we harness the collective power of people's voices around America to address the opioid epidemic, I have no doubt that we can overcome it.

When I talk about feminism and what I think the women's movement needs more of, it's not to detract from anything going on - I think everything going on is fantastic - but there's this missing element. I think we could learn from our detractors a little bit because I feel like they have a plan, a better understanding of things than we necessarily do. You can't change things if you don't understand the other people involved. And if you don't understand yourself, you'll never change.

Let me tell you humans something. You are not fighters. You don’t have what it takes to actually change your current living situations. You can’t even organize a decent group to combat oppression. How can beings of such low stature hope to do anything? You are not heroes. Stop pretending you are helping by playing commando and get out of the way of someone who can.

The women's movement resurgence of standing up for so many things that were kind of sleepy there for a decade or so, there's been a reawakening and I think the consciousness movement in general is dovetailing with a lot of recovery and self-empowerment.

I think that feminism is in cycle. Feminism rotates between backlash and interest.

You can be as earnest and ridiculous as you need to be, if you don't attempt it in isolation. The ridiculously earnest are known to travel in groups. And they are known to change the world.

I have a great deal of hope. I think that change is here, it's happening. But I know that if we think it's just going to happen on its own, that's not the way it works. We need people to keep talking about women of color writing comics and living the charge. Not just talking but doing. Making art, putting it out there.

I think feminism is taking off. It's just not visible in the way that we would like it to be.

I think it's an aggregation of all of the small acts that are really transformative. I think a group of small acts transform the individual. And maybe when the individual transforms, collectively we transform.

Most new movements start this way: hundreds or thousands of individuals and groups, working in different fields and different locations, start thinking about change using a common language, without necessarily recognizing those shared values. You just start following your own vector, propelled along by people in your immediate vicinity. And then one day, you look up and realize that all those individual trajectories have turned into a wave.

The thing we have to fear in this country, to my way of thinking, is the influence of the organized minorities, because somehow or other the great majority does not seem to organize. They seem to feel that they are going to be effective because of their own strength, but they give no expression of it.