Gloria Steinem Quotes

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.

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.

Change happens from the bottom up - all of us as individuals deciding that we will and we do have an impact.

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.

If there is going to be change, real change, it will have to work its way from the bottom up, from the people themselves. That's how change happens.

I decided to become a community organizer ... Change won't come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.

Real, sustainable community change requires the initiative and engagement of community members.

Just by making a decision to stay out of politics, you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it, if you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.

I think you have to ask yourself does voting work on the level that you are trying to effectuate change; that is the conversation you must have.

We shall never change our political leaders until we change the people who elect them.

I'm not ready to give you a clear answer on whether electoral politics holds any particular hope for progressives. It would mean that nothing I did ever mattered.

I'm running for senator because it's time for a change.

Real change occurs from the bottom up; it occurs person to person, and it almost always occurs in small groups and locales and then bubbles up and aggregates to larger vectors of change.

You change laws by changing lawmakers.

If Voting Changed Anything, They’d Abolish It

Social change … almost inevitably leads to the rise of new political actors demanding a voice and a share of power.

The center of gravity has shifted from the courts to community action.

To some degree it matters who's in office, but it matters more how much pressure they're under from the public.

I believe the people of Compton are ready for change. They've spoken. Their voice has clearly been heard that they don't want to go backward. They want to go forward.

I thought I could make change by just working at ground level, but to change a community, you have to change policies.

Real change never occurs from the top on down, [but] always from the bottom on up.

The revolution starts at the bottom.

My advice is very simple: if you can win a small battle, it gives you confidence in the political process to take on bigger battles, and so it is very much a bottom-up grass-roots way of doing politics.

I would say that a wasted vote is voting for anybody you don't believe in. If you believe in the third party, that's the guy you need to voice for. That's how you change things.

We have to do more than just elect a new President if we truly want to change this country.