Sam Cooke Quotes

In any social revolution the one thing that keeps it alive is hope.

I live in the United States, but I do not know exactly where. My address is wherever there is a fight against oppression. My address is like my shoes; it travels with me. I abide where there is a fight against wrong.

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man's right to his body, or woman's right to her soul.

Security isn't what I hunger for. I hunger for change. I hunger for connection.

America never was America to me And yet I swear this oath - America will be!

In less than a century we experienced great movement. The youth movement! The labor movement! The civil rights movement! The peace movement! The solidarity movement! The women's movement! The disability movement! The disarmament movement! The gay rights movement! The environmental movement! Movement! Transformation! Is there any reason to believe we are done?

It's coming to America first, The cradle of the best and of the worst. It's here they got the range And the machinery for change And it's here they got the spiritual thirst. It's here the family's broken And it's here the lonely say That the heart has got to open In a fundamental way: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. O mighty Ship of State! To the Shores of Need Past the Reefs of Greed Through the Squalls of Hate Sail on, sail on.

I know that my race must change.

There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.

Do you know what social justice is? Do you know what social reform is? I didn't either, but reform and social justice are what I intend to do.

We are here to make another world.

Every renaissance comes to the world with a cry, the cry of the human spirit to be free.

We don't have to be imprisoned by the past. When something isn't working, we can and should change.

When you look at the times in history when change was brought about, there were two factors: crisis and leadership.

Emancipation is a demand of civilization. All else is intrigue.

Radicalism is a label that is always applied to people who are endeavoring to get freedom.

Beginning reform is beginning revolution.

We who once were fools and dreamers, then shall we be brave and wise.

It is essential to release humanity from the false fixations of yesterday, which seem now to bind it to a rationale of action leading only to extinction.

Heroism means going out of bounds. In this world things must go out of bounds from time to time... No one can desire that the world continue to muddle along in every respect in the groove into which imperfect laws and even more imperfect behavior have pushed it. Without heroic intervention no Council of Nicaea, no dethronement of the Merovingians, no conquest of England, no Reformation, no revolt of the Netherlands, no free America. The thing that counts is who intervenes, how and in the name of what.

It was imperative to make common cause with the oppressed in order to secure a new system opposed to the ambitions and governing habits of the oppressors.

There is always room for understanding towards those who see the old ways crumbling. And today I say simply this: It must come. It is right that it should come. And when it does, you will find that a burden has been lifted from your shoulders too.

We would be in trouble as a society if there wasn't a constant pressure to make reforms and to be just.

Anytime that someone defies the status quo and defies oppression, it feels like a step in the right direction.

I am unapologetic about the need for social change, greater inclusion, and equity.