Rick Bass Quotes

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

I've done community organizing my whole life and I think to myself, as an organizer, we don't wait for people to come to us and say, 'Help us organize something.' We go out into the community, and we bring the skills to a group of people to organize themselves.

I'm convinced democracy will grow from the ground up, from the community.

I like talking about it, I like talking about world change. I like talking about things that you want to do in your community.

I remember the president-elect [Donald Trump] saying that I'm going to do something to dramatically, positively change communities, particularly in urban areas, and I think we've got to hold his feet to the fire to all those issues as well as all the issues that you addressed, you and many others addressed yesterday as it relates to criminal justice, as it relates to voting oppression.

I believe that one of the most important things to learn in life is that you can make a difference in your community no matter who you are or where you live.

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. Speeches like this are fun, actually doing the work is hard.

I actually do not think that's how what's happening to our government is going to be stopped. I think people who are willing to be civically engaged and believe in the promises and the progress of the last fifty years that will save this country.

We want to make nation-building a people's movement.

The [nonprofit] sector enhances our creativity, enlivens our communities, nurtures individual responsibility, stirs life at the grassroots, and reminds us that we were born free.

I have spent my entire life working to make my community and my country better. And I can't wait to get inside the courtroom to tell my story.

Once I learned about grassroots organizing, I got so enamored with it because I thought 'Wow this is the way you do it!'

One of the reasons I'm in this business is because I have absolute respect for the people who say, "You know what? I think I can make this a little better and I'm willing to get in and try." Because, I'll tell you, there are a hell of a lot of reasons to stay away from running for office today.

We need people to be alert and thinking for themselves and connected to each other and connected to that sense of hope and empowerment and radical chutzpah that the founding generation had and intended us to have.

There are enough people who are starting to be actively involved that we can turn things around. And we need to encourage others to become involved.

Making money isn't the main point of business. Money is a by-product.... A new product has been found, something of use to the world. A new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines go in and you're in business. It's coincidental that people who've never seen a dime now have a dollar and barefooted kids wear shoes and have their faces washed. What's wrong with an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and movies on a Saturday night?

I'm still basically an idealist, which translates into getting real things done to make people's lives better.

I think my experience at the University of Chicago, working in the civil rights movement, working in the peace movement, working with community organizations, did a lot to influence the politics that I have.

We in Europe need to discuss how we can improve the community. That is the correct order.

I've seen young people raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix a problem in their community. I've seen young people raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to dig wells in Africa. I've seen young people pass laws, largely impacting their communities. They do have the power to change the world.

I think we are in a time where the youth play such a huge role. It's up to us to go the extra mile to vote and raise our voices.

If people are taking my book seriously and organizing, getting into office, caring about the constitution, and not waiting for someone else to lead them, I think, God bless them. All of us should be doing that. The left should be doing that.

Most of the time we do nothing, myself included, I think the lesson I learned from [playing humanitarian Tessa in The Constant Gardner] is that a lot of drops make up an ocean. If people would stand up and say what they believe in maybe we can make a difference. Helping one person is better than nothing. Just do something.

I think one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power throughout which you bring about redistributive change. And in some ways, we still suffer from that.

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.