Barack Obama Quotes

If you aren't an activist you're an inactivist.

Each of us should choose which course of action we must take; education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes, but let it not be said that we did nothing.

Maybe we should raise our voices, ask somebody why. But demonstrations are a drag, besides we're much too high.

I have great respect for people who are in the front lines and the trenches of trying to enact social change. I am far lazier than that.

It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is nor an answer Neither is resignation Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment.

One does not fight to influence change and then leave the change to someone else to bring about.

There is a point in fighting. There is a point in struggle. Not wholesale revolution, maybe, that might not be possible, an absolutely just society, but there are plenty of spaces and places where it's worth putting up a fight.

Change only takes place through action, not through meditation and prayer.

Activism is something that no one can fake. You get angry. You cry. But you never throw in your towel, because that anger is what is propelling you to further action.

I think direct political action, civil disobedience, in particular, is something to be taken very seriously.

I want to make activism a bigger part of my life, while hopefully maintaining the opportunity to help out causes that I really care about. And being an actor allows me to do that. Shooting a Cisco commercial allows me to do that. I mean, doing all these things allows me to talk about these issues. But don't think there aren't those moments where I'm like, "What am I doing? I have to quit my job and chain myself to a tree." Believe me, I have those moments.

Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable.

Activism has been very productive in our society.

View talk radio not as entertainment but as a tool for organizing and action.

Activists set the agenda for the practitioners.

I think voting is the lowest form of political action that you can do. A lot of times, it keeps people from doing stronger things.

Activism is not a journey to the corner store. It is a plunge into the unknown. The future is always dark.

Agitators, organizers, activists, intellectuals aren't bound by those rules. We're not trying to figure out, how do I thread this particular needle?

Individuals bearing witness cannot do the work of social movements, but they can break a corrosive and demoralizing silence.

What matters most is not who is sitting in the White House, but "who is sitting in" - and who is marching outside the White House, pushing for change.

In this country, the only way a minority can get anything done is to make a little noise.

If civil disobedience is the way to go about change, than I think a lot of people will be going to San Francisco

It's important that people press from the outside. It's important that people are able to make change from the inside. Both of those things are important. Protest is fundamentally a political act.

Where's the activism? Nobody knows. And anyone who thinks they know, like Todd Gitlin, has their head up their ass. Nobody knows. The day before every revolution that's ever happened, that revolution was impossible. The day before Rosa Parks, that was impossible. The day after, it was inevitable.

Channel your outrage ... Do that which you are able to do.