Bill Ayers Quotes

We on the Left are very good at criticizing people, but we need to build the base to pull people to the Left.

Students for a Democratic Society was founded in 1961.

[Students for a Democratic Society] was on many campuses and it was a powerful organization. It was founded by Tom Hayden, who passed away very recently. It was one of the founders of SDS and that chief writer of the Port Huron Statement, which is still worth reading. It's kind of the Bernie Sanders campaign document in a funny way.

I know exactly what I will do. I will go and work with the Congress of South African Students.

If their were more Franklin operations it could help the cause much more than right wing activity.

I got a degree in sociology, didn't read much fiction in college, and I was a pretty political, left-wing type of guy. I wanted to do some kind of work in social change and make things better for the poor man, and I was very romantic and passionate about it.

What is invaluable about Angela Davis' work is that she does not limit her politics to issues removed from broader social considerations, but connects every aspect of her scholarship and public interventions to what the contours of a truly democratic society might look like.

When I grow up I’m going to change the government.

And to all of your supporters here and around the country: I want you to know, I've heard you. Your cause is our cause. Our country needs your ideas, energy, and passion. That is the only way we can turn our progressive platform into real change for America. We wrote it together - now let's go out and make it happen together.

The Democratic Party has been my party over 50 years, where I waged my battle to change America and change the world from its progressive wing.

I was pulled out of school for every moratorium day and every rally for a left-wing candidate... from Ed Koch in his heyday to Eugene McCarthy. That's the culture that I came from.

Even though I grew up and I didn't always like getting dragged to the meetings or the rallies or the speeches, I developed a very strong respect for participating in a democratic process.

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.

The consciousness-raising, the advocacy, the passion, the youth of your movement is so critical.

If democracy were to be given any meaning, if it were to go beyond the limits of capitalism and nationalism, this would not come, if history were any guide, from the top. It would come through citizen's movements, educating, organizing, agitating, striking, boycotting, demonstrating, threatening those in power with disruption of the stability they needed.

The most exciting things going on in America today are movements to change America.

As Bernie Sanders said himself, it's a movement, not a man. And that movement continues to move into our campaign.

Students for a Democratic Society was also affiliated with the civil rights movement everywhere.

You do not keep American democracy in suspense. Because, look, too many people have marched and protested and fought and died for this democracy.

I hope that even if I go to jail, it will motivate more and more Hongkongers to commit to determine our future, instead of fully relying on those ruling class who have dominated our future.

With the passion and the vision of the Berners [Sanders] coming into the Greens - we call it berning green - and the events that I'm going to that are being created around the country right now, it's the Bernie folks who are showing up in huge numbers along with the traditional Green. It's very powerful.

Every call you make, every door you knock, every friend you register to vote could make the difference.

It transmitted because on the campuses, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was recruiting, was organizing. Students for a Democratic Society was founded at Michigan just a couple years before I got there. So, there was a kind of a churning of political awareness. It was just beginning.

When the students in the South, the blacks, started demonstrating, that was the beginning of the time of students becoming a social force around the world.

To make the revolution in the United States is a slow day by day job that requires patience and discipline. It is the only way to make it. . . . All I know is that despite the fact that I am one of the people who benefit from a capitalist society, I find that any system which exploits other people cannot and should not exist.