Wangari Maathai Quotes

Any realistic vision of change must be based on the notion of empowerment of people.

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.

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

We can begin by doing small things at the local level, like planting community gardens or looking out for our neighbors. That is how change takes place in living systems, not from above but from within, from many local actions occurring simultaneously.

Ordinary people can bring about change.

We the people are the change makers.

My own view - and I'm very open to hearing other perspectives - is that this movement-building needs to begin at home, in local communities. It isn't about trying to launch a brand new national party overnight. It's about people in communities coming together across lines of difference, bringing with them their movements, their families, and coming together and saying, "How can we together build a movement of movements here at home? What would that look like? What do we want to do right here in our communities?"

We've got to figure out a way to cause communities to also want them, the political, organized bodies.

It's always the small people who change things. It's never the politicians or the big guys. I mean, who pulled down the Berlin wall? It was all the people in the streets. The specialists didn't have a clue the day before.

If our society is to address social issues, it will be done at the local level or not at all.

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

I just want to put the power back to the people.

To rebuild confidence in the power of people working together to create something better, we must give people the power to do precisely that for themselves.

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.

The White House is not where power comes from in this country. The cities and the local communities of this nation are prepared to save Washington - and not vice versa.

No more top-down politics with Westminster dictating what's right for every community. We must all be partners in designing a better future for our country.

Do you have the vision to help empower and channel the energy at the grassroots level?This is not about one person; this is about millions of people all working together to protect and advance the interests of working Americans.

We have to get back down to basics. We have to start organizing at the neighborhood level to get people educated to vote.

The corporate-powered parties are not gonna do it for us, not the greater or the lesser evil. We have to do it for ourselves. And the minute we stand up and stand together, we are unstoppable.

Movements of people create change - not just any one person or organization, but when lots of people are in motion around a shared vision.

The task is to transform society; only the people can do that - not heroes, not celebrities, not stars.

If the government or the parties won't address our needs, we will. It's about direct action, even civil disobedience.

You keep plugging away--that's the way social change takes place. That's the way every social change in history has taken place: by a lot of people, who nobody ever heard of, doing work.

For we put the power in the people.

Very great change starts from very small conversations, held among people who care.